Indore-Khandwa Gauge Conversion: Railway & Forest Officials Meet To Resolve Conversion Hurdles

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): To speed up the construction of Indore-Khandwa gauge conversion project and to sort out the problems in the project, railway and forest officials held discussions here on Tuesday. To note, the work on the project was stuck in the forest near Barwah.

MP Shankar Lalwani called the meeting of the top officials of both the departments on Tuesday wherein he gave necessary instructions to resolve the problems face to face. Lalwani informed that the joint meeting of the railway and forest officials would yield results. In the meeting, he instructed the officials of both the departments to resolve the problem.

Rajiv Agrawal, assistant executive engineer of the railway’s construction department said that the work was stuck due to not getting land from the forest department. DFO Virendra Patel said that there was a shortage of staff in the work of counting trees and demarcation etc. Lalwani instructed to deploy additional staff. In lieu of giving land to the railways, the Indore forest department has to take 571 hectares of land in Jhabua district, 100 hectares in Alirajpur and 238 hectares in Dhar district.

The Indore forest department will plant trees on this land. MP Lalwani first called the Jhabua DFO, then DFO Alirajpur and finally DFO Dhar and instructed them to take necessary steps to transfer the land immediately. All three assured necessary action within 15 days.