Media team inspects rail project
Source: Hueiyen News Service / NNN

Imphal, November 19 2013: Different media houses including both electronic and print media of national and local dailies and news channels today inspected the national project (railway line construction) in Tamenglong district which has been banned by the All Tribal Students' Union, Manipur (ATSUM) under the leadership of its president Muan Tombing as part of the second phase of the agitation under the code name ROTO (Reckoning of the Other) from the midnight of November 11 .

During the inspection, the media team met manager of Sushi High Tech Private Company Limited, Shishi Keran at Awangkhul, Tamenglong district.

The Hyderabad based private company is responsible for tunnel drilling of the railway project between Jiri and Tupul.

The manager told the media team that an amount of more than Rs 15 lakh is spent daily for the constructed related works including payment of labour charge, machine charge, fooding, lodging of the workers and others.

The private company which has more than 600 staffs and labourers are the first ones to complete drilling of tunnels for this project with three more construction works underway.

Conveying his target to complete the ongoing projects by March, 2015, the manager appealed to the state government to help in his endeavour by negotiating with the ATSUM (T) so that there is no further delay in the construction works.

Talking to the media team, the site in-charge of the UAN-MAX Infra Private Company Limited, D.Venkatesharlu at Tupul highlighted the inconveniences faced by the people at work and said that a loss of Rs 1 lakh per day is incurred by them for managing the works.

The company has utilized 117 labourers for the construction of tunnel at Tupul and has completed constructing 145 metres out of the 662 metres long T27 tunnel at Tupul.

On meeting the office-head of an Assam based company NYAK Private Company Limited, Kasudev told the media team that the role of the company, which has more than 200 staffs and 100 labourers, is for constructing bridges, retaining walls and excavation works.

Upon inspection, the media team learned that all the national projects have been shut down and construction works came to a halt.

The media team also observed that the agitating student body has started shutting down government offices like DC, SDO and ZEO in Ukhrul and Churachandpur districts.

On the other hand, the ATSUM team said that their demands are genuine and are under the Indian Constitution as asserted by Majabung Gangmei, speaker of ATSUM (T) during a meeting with the media somewhere in Imphal.

The student leader also added that instead of suppressing their demands by registering a case against them, the government should try to bring a solution to end the problem for the larger good of all.

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