Militant threats keep workers off rail sites in J&K

While several ongoing projects in Kashmir have suffered badly due to the exodus of non-local labourers, the railways face the brunt the most because almost half the workers engaged in projects like bridging, track-linkage and finishing have left the valley due to threats from militant organisations.

Sources in the northern railways said about 1,800 labourers and other workers on the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project had left jobs after receiving warnings from militant organisations.

"Even non-local labourers, who had left for their states in a routine manner before the warning, did not turn up, thereby further adding to the delay in different works of the railways," a source added.

In view of the mass exodus of labourers, work on the projects has suffered immensely and the contractors as well as Indian Railway Construction Company and Hindustan Construction Corporation are facing a daunting task ahead. IRCON has engaged some locals on the job, but they lack the expertise to work on rail projects.

A majority of the workers on the projects had come from other states.

The sources said 35-40 per cent of the work had affected due to the mass exodus.

IRCON has withdrawn labourers from other parts of the project and has deployed them on the Budgam-Pattan and Anantnag-Kakapore sections to meet the target of finishing the work by December and pave the way for the first train to start on the total 72-km stretch, as announced by the government.

With the increasing threats of terrorists, additional railway protection force (RPF) personnel have been deployed on the project site, covering about 30 km.

One more company of the CRPF has been deployed this month for the protection of vital installations and other material dumped at various places along the track.

Security for the workers engaged on the Udhampur-Katra-Reasi-Qazigund section of the rail project is yet to be strengthened.