BARA, JANUARY 14

The locals have protested a survey of the East-West Railway in Bara.

The locals were up in arms after a survey was done affecting the main settlement in the bazaar area of Nijgadh Municipality.

According to the survey team Incharge Suraj Poudel, the locals impeded the deadline to prepare the project’s detailed project report that would start after the survey.

On his part, local Bishnu Khadka said they had to protest as the development project was likely to displace a many people.

“The railway track should be laid in such a way as to cause minimal problems for locals, but in our case it has been proposed through a dense settlement, which is likely to displace hundreds of people, and also rob them of their farmland, which is not acceptable at all,” said Khadka, adding that the railway line could run through an area which was relatively sparsely populated by circumventing Nijgadh bazaar.

As the project had started carrying out survey by planting pillars along the proposed site without informing the locals, the latter had protested the act and got the surveyors to uproot the pillars.

“What I don’t understand is why the government chose to start the survey without informing us, that too, through our lands despite our protest,” Khadka said.