Silchar(Assam)/Agartala, Sept 16 (TIWN) An apolitical socio-civic body led by academicians, intellectuals and social workers called for a 12-hour strike on Sept 24 in southern Assam, demanding early completion of ongoing rail projects in the northeastern India.

The dawn-to-dusk strike, called Monday, by the Broad Gauge Railway Line Implementation Agitation Samity (BGRLIAS) in three districts of southern Assam’s Barak Valley region - Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi.

The strike may disrupt rail services between Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur besides Assam and rest of India.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has supported the strike. BJP’s youth wing Bharatiya Juba Morcha has also announced separately that it would organise demonstration in front of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) headquarters at Maligaon in Guwahati on Sept 20 in support of the demand.

BGRLIAS convener Ajoy Roy told reporters in Silchar : “Due to utter negligence of the central government, rail connectivity in the northeastern region has made very poor progress. The rail network is dependent on over 100-year-old tracks laid during the British rule.”

He said : “Despite assurances by several Prime Ministers and other central leaders and after numerous agitations, the extension of rail networks and their target dates get delayed year after year.”

On Aug 7, over 5,000 members of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and Tribal Youth Federation (TYF) -- both youth wings of the Communist Party of India-Marxist -- staged a demonstration at the NFR headquarters in Guwahati.

The DYFI and TYF agitators led by Communist Party of India-Marxist Rajya Sabha member Jharna Das Baidya and party leader Uddhab Barman demanded early completion of delayed rail projects in the land-locked northeastern region.

In January 1996, the then prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda laid the foundation stone for conversion of the Lumding-Agartala metre-gauge track to broad gauge.

Subsequently, the gauge conversion project was declared a national project by incumbent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

According to railway officials, the cost of the gauge conversion project has escalated to Rs.2,800 crore from Rs.648 crore in 1996.

The broad gauge railway line from Guwahati passes through Lumding in Nagaon district, connecting Agartala and parts of Manipur, Mizoram and southern Assam with the rest of India by a single 109-year-old metre-gauge track.

Agartala is one of the newest stations of the Indian Railways, and came up on the map in October 2008.