Efforts to extend the railway network to Kashmir have exposed the Indian Railways to a situation where they become innovative, gaining a lot of experience. They created their own wonders while implementing the project.

Working overtime for many years, they constructed a tunnel connecting Udhampur with Katra. The tunnel was ready and efforts were being made to get some VVIPs from Delhi to inaugurate it. Incidentally, an inspection visit prior to it, led to the discovery of lost ground. To their horror, they saw a fast flowing river under the tunnel. More than three years later, even after roping in foreign consultants, Railways is yet to manage a way out. Train is still stuck in Udhampur.

Over to Gool belt in Ramban. The terrain was identified, examined and work started. The earthwork was over and the track was laid. One fine morning, as the workers came to work, there was no track. In fact, there was no alignment. The entire stretch had crumbled under its own weight. Along with it had gone vast stretches of the pasture land. But for the executing agency’s videos and photographs of the work, nobody would have ever believed that they had done any work. It was all lost, thanks to the ivory tower planning without involving the local geological human resource. A similar situation was encountered over a bridge on Chenab. Work started and a huge sum was invested. It was then abandoned. After a lull, the work started almost on the same spot!

But they have many historic firsts to their credit, at least on this project. When the Srinagar-Budgam track was ready, rail coaches were driven into the valley. The engineers replaced the iron wheels of the specially designed coaches by 36-truck wheels as a 460-HP specially designed trailer-truck pulled it one by one. They stuck up near the tunnel as the trailers were too large for the tunnel. The way-out: decrease the air pressure in the wheels till the coach fit in the tunnel. Cross the tunnel, refill the tyres and drive to Srinagar!

Now in another amazing feat it is flying construction machinery using army choppers to remote mountainous belts in Pir Panchal. Last week IAF’s MI-26 flew a number of trucks, dozers, jeeps and earth removers to select spots in Sanghaldhan, Dugga and Surukote (Reasi district). Railways will start work on the project from road from both sides. Part of the Katra-Qazigund stretch, Konkan Railways Constructions Limited is implementing it. Flying the machinery required 11 sorties and cost Railways a fortune.

Meanwhile, it will take 45 days to restore the 114-km track in Kashmir parts of which were damaged during the current unrest.

PDP quits Kashmir!
In his ‘no merger but accession’ speech in the state assembly in October, chief minister Omar Abdullah ridiculed now-detained separatist Masrat Alam’s ‘Quit Kashmir’ campaign. They (separatists), he said, had expected that security forces will go, not knowing that actually Kashmiris were quitting Kashmir. “Around 30,000 people lost jobs and hundreds of students and professionals fled Kashmir to manage their living outside,” he said. Had this speech delivered a month later, Omar would have added: … even the state’s main opposition has quit Kashmir.

Yes, PDP exists but the leaders are out. Party patron and former chief minister Mufti Sayeed is in Jammu. His daughter and the party president Mehbooba Mufti is in London and is unlikely to be home before Eid. This has left the flock with no direction and literally in disarray. Grapevine has it that NC is working to give Mufti the taste of his own medicine by engineering ‘slow defection’.

But PDP is perhaps the only unionist party that can go with impulse. They withdrew support and brought down Ghulam Nabi Azad government at the peak of Amarnath crisis forgetting that they could require a similar alliance with them in future. They attacked the chief minister, which led him to opt for a conditional resignation in the 2009 summer. Last month, they were expected to be aggressive in the state legislature and make the ruling alliance accountable. But they chose to make a speech and go home.

They even went with a dose of allegations of corruption against the government and were slapped with a defamation suit. More recently, the government is seeking its cooperation in appointing some top officials including head of the state accountability commission but is not getting it.

But the party is heading towards a litmus test. The government has sailed through, at least, so far. As the offices open in Jammu, the processes of the governance would resume. That includes the budget session. Will the PDP chose to stay away from this session as well?

Now, Fourth Time
Chief minister Omar Abdullah laid the foundation stone of Rs 24-crore ‘Udyog Bhawan’ at Bemina, Srinagar. It will be the centre of all the industry related developments and departments. Jammu already has it. Meanwhile, language activists are pained why it should be called an Udyog Bhawan (Hindi word) at the cost of Kashmiri and Urdu, the official language of the state. Industry people laugh at the controversy. They say they have attended three such functions in the past in which the foundation stone was laid. All earlier plaque were lost. They hope the building is not lost in the din over language.

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