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| Delhi HC asks Railways to check safety concerns on Katra-Qazigund rail project | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
New Delhi, Dec 2: The Delhi High Court today asked the Railway Board to look into the safety issues raised against the Katra-Qazigund rail line, linking Kashmir valley with the rest of the country, in the present form.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar, however, refused to constitute a technical group to explore an alternative alignment to connect the valley with the rest of the country.
The Court was hearing a PIL filed by an NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation alleging the railway had gone ahead with the project by ignoring serious concerns raised by various experts, its own officials and the high-level expert committee, and despite a virtual unanimous support for a project with alternate alignment.
"There is also virtual unanimous support for an alternative alignment which is safe, less costly, which will considerably reduce route length, will improve stability, reduce maintenance cost and time and make relief operations easier," advocates Prashant Bhushan and Pranav Sachdeva, appearing for the NGO, contended.
The Bench, however, said these are technical issues to be decided by the Railway Board and the Court cannot interfere at this stage.
"You first place the case before appropriate authority and after that you can approach the Court. We would ask the Board to permit you to make representation on these issues," the court said.
The project, which was inaugurated in 2002 to link Katra (in Jammu region) and Quazigund (in Kashmir region), is about 150km long and passes through the mountains.
The NGO contended in its petition that the project, which was to completed in 5 years by 2007 but due to "faulty" alignment it is not even 10 percent complete and costs have escalated by 400 percent and the project is likely to take another 20 years.
"Work has come to a total standstill for the last two years after there have been several collapse of partly-built tunnels. Even after the project gets completed, there are serious safety and security concerns and human life would always be in danger," the petitioner contended.
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