Would the Rewa-Mirzapur rail line remain only a dream for Vindhya residents?
Decades after Independence and about 15 years after approval, the Rewa-Mirzapur rail line had not progressed on the ground, and the report questioned the role of local representatives.
The Rewa-Mirzapur rail line, extremely important for the Vindhya region of Madhya Pradesh and awaiting construction since the days of Independence, had still not materialised even 75 years after Independence. The BJP had been in power at the Centre and in the state for the previous two decades, and the responsible public representatives for this rail line also belonged to the same party, so fingers were bound to be pointed at them. According to public discussion, the responsible representative was even accused of getting a second survey done for this important line and thereby forcing an unnecessary extra detour of 50 kilometres. What the reality was, only they would know. According to the first survey, a rail line built parallel to the national highway would have benefited the public and also made economic and commercial sense. Whatever the truth, the bigger reality was that no process related to the construction of the Rewa-Mirzapur line had moved forward up to then, and no work was visible on the ground, even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said at the inauguration of Kevadia railway station in Gujarat that now
Rewa-Mirzapur rail line
railway projects do not hang fire under our government. Despite this, the Rewa-Mirzapur line was still stalled a decade and a half after approval, which was unfortunate. Whose responsibility was it to raise this before the Prime Minister? Unfortunately, the local representatives slept more deeply than Kumbhakarna, who at least woke every six months, whereas they woke once in five years to get this line built. Other rail lines approved in Madhya Pradesh had progressed far, thanks to the activism of local representatives, and construction was about to begin. People could not understand why they had sent the MP back three times with a huge majority, if not in the hope that he would take an interest in delivering a gift like the Rewa-Mirzapur line. It seemed that the remark he had made ten years earlier in Bhuvri village of Hanumana still lingered in his mind: that the region’s development was possible not through railways but by promoting the cultivation of vegetables and improving livestock breeds. After the remark drew criticism, he held a separate meeting in Hanumana to clarify that this was not what he meant, and said that since the Lalitpur-Singrauli line took 55 years, people should not take the Rewa-Mirzapur line as so easy.
Yet while the ‘double-engine’ government was spoken of and Modi was working at great speed, with governments at the Centre and in the state and Janardan Mishra himself MP for a third consecutive term, and with Anupriya Patel, MP from the part of Uttar Pradesh through which the line had to pass, continuously a Union minister, failing to make the Rewa-Mirzapur line a reality was unfortunate. People had also begun asking whether the development of the whole district would come from cleaning toilets and building passenger waiting rooms. If the line were built parallel to the four-lane road as per the first survey, people would get rail travel, the region would develop, and several thousand people would get new employment opportunities economically and commercially. All this needed consideration, but the responsible representative needed someone to play Sanjaya of the Mahabharata for him, to show him the right counsel.
