Title - Youths demand employment, completion of railway projects

GUWAHATI: Revolutionary songs in Kokborok - a language spoken by tribal communities in Tripura - reverberated as activists of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and its affiliate Tribal Youth Federation (TYF) staged a day-long protest in front of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) headquarters at Maligaon here on Wednesday.

Hundreds of DYFI and TYF activists from Tripura and Assam protested against delay in railway projects in the northeast. They were also demanding that vacant posts in the railways be fulfilled immediately.

Protestors belted out revolutionary songs in Kokborok language to express their demands amid slogans and speeches by DYFI, TYF and CPM leaders.

They asked why work on Lumding-Badarpur-Silchar-Agartala, Rangiya-Rangapara-Murkongselek broad gauge conversion, rail-cum-road bridge over the Brahmaputra river at Bogibeel, new broad gauge railway tracks from Kumarghat to Agartala, from Agartala to Sabroom, from Azara to Byrnihat and from Dimapur to Kohima, were taking so much time to complete. The leaders also wondered why Rangiya-Murkongselek broad gauge lines, which have been completed some time ago, have not yet been opened.

"The delay in completion of railway projects in the northeast only highlights the neglect towards the region. There are several vacant posts in the railways. Had these posts been filled, several local youths would have been recruited. Railways should have been an agent of development in the northeast," DYFI Tripura state secretary Amal Chakraborty said.

TYF general secretary Pranab Debbarma said, "We are demanding a separate railway division in Agartala besides improvement of services in Tripura. So many posts in the railways are lying vacant. We want immediate recruitment against these posts."

Former CPM legislator of Assam, Ananta Deka, said both the Centre and the state government have been neglecting development of railway services in the region.