Lucknow: Neetu Sapra has 14 years of memories spent in J&K since 1997.“No quarter, peak rebellion, Kargil War-It was a roller coaster,” she says about life with a two-year-old son and a railway officer husband in Srinagar with a danger-surrounded project, as it was technically challenging. “On a trip to shopping for Lal Chowk in 1998, we survived narrowly. The USBRL gave us the same shape as we shaped it. ,Neetu’s story has been linked with Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) that PM Narendra Modi is ready to inaugurate on Friday, which was ever considered a geographical priest, which was considered to be a seamless rail connectivity from Kanakumari to Kashmir.Says Neetu, “The wives of all the railway personnel associated with the USBRL will have similar stories to tell,”, whose husband Suresh Kumar Sapra was an executive engineer with Northern Railway then.Sapra was posted in Udhampur when former PM HD Deve Gowda laid the foundation stone of USBRL in Udhampur in early 1997. Many people thought that the work of carving a route through undivided, terrorist-worked regions was a fictional idea.Till April that year, India had a new PM in Ik Gujral nearby, and a second foundation ceremony was soon planned in Srinagar for the Kajigund-Baramulla section.SAPRA received an official note from his senior colleague Sandeep Gupta – Executive Engineer 13 – To lead the Majboot Technical Team – to proceed to Srinagar on July 12, 1997, Program.With obstacles in the form of standing as Pir Panjal, the team cracked. In February this year, retired as Chief Administrative Officer of USBRL, Gupta said, “Srinagar was synonymous with extremism. No one was ready.“We had no choice but to dive. It was older than us,” he writes in the book, remembering how his team got an irregular phone and electricity connection and insufficient number of vehicles.The journey from Udhampur to Spara from Srinagar prepared them to move forward for laying land for the foundation ceremony.“Just 13 km beyond Udhampur, we dodged the possibility of death of a few meters because there was a landslide before our eyes. The national highway was blocked for 48 hours.” A week later, Gupta joined him, reached Srinagar on a wreath van. A team of 69th Battalion of CRPF was then occupying the railway -owned holiday house at Tulsi Bagh in Srinagar, leaving Gupta’s team to rub in four dingi rooms inside the campus.Sapra, currently Principal Executive Director at the Research Design and Standards Organization in Lucknow, says, “We had only candles for light and water from CRPF tankers to buckets.”Living situation and logistics remained a challenge. The state electricity department refused to restore electricity in the railway facility, citing unpaid bills during a decade during a decade. Several meetings were held with the then Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, SL Bhat to restore the power supply. Mudasara, the then General Manager of PA to Dot, intervened to provide the landline.On November 12, 1997, a railway survey team consisting of two officers, three junior engineers and six assistants, which reached Novagam (later the name of Srinagar railway station) on a cloud. Local people misunderstood them for a police raid party, causing a stressful situation to already excluded the spiral control.Gupta recalls in his essay, “My stomach had butterflies due to anxiety and fear of butterflies.”Every day, a road-opening party will overtake the railway survey team to detect and define possible mines. After studying the topography sheet and working on other details, Gupta and Sapra threw the first two wooden pegs into the ground to mark the first alignment of the project.“It felt as if we had a dream,” Sapra misses.As soon as the winter caught, the survey covered Pampore and Kakapora. The first snowfall of 1997 occurred on 27 November. The work had to be stopped till 15 December. The team will return to resume work on next April.Gupta said, “In our closed days, we hunted vegetarian food in Srinagar. However, the CRPF was not happy about our enterprise outside the railway complex.”Surveying Anantnag, the team surrendered to the terrorists carrying AK -47. “They looked scared, but did not harm us; in fact, they looked encouraging,” says Gupta.As of 31 October 1998, the Kajigund-Baramulla survey report was prepared. The railway team did not just defeat the obstacles; He completed the work before the schedule.After the Baramulla-Kajigund section, Sapra and his colleagues were asked to survey the proposed Katra-Kajigund stretch. He was in 2001. The then Railway Minister Nitish Kumar laid the foundation of this part after two years.“During the survey, we closely saw how difficult life was for the people of the valley. Pregnant women, severely sick patients and elderly people will be brought down from the mountainous region, as there was no road. The only ways of transportation for mules and horses items were, “Sapra recalls.Just when things looked good, there was a tragedy on June 25, 2004, when the earcon engineer RN Pundir and his brother were kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Sugan in Shopian. “It was a shock. Work stopped. But inspired by local sympathy and police support, the railway people resumed with the same enthusiasm, “In their memoir, the then Deputy Chief Engineer of USBRL Bhanu Prakash writes.In October 2008, the first test from Badgam to Kakapora was conducted, a milestone in more than one way. A Hindu priest, a Muslim cleric and a Sikh Granthi presided over the prayers before the train rolled at a speed of 30 kmph. “The locals erected the tracks and the children left school to watch the trial run. Even the cattle looked shocked!By the time Kajigund-Baramullah section was commissioned in 2009, the tracks were ready for trains to run at a speed of up to 100 km.Built at a cost of about Rs 44,000 crore, including a parallel highway, there are 36 tunnels and 943 bridges on the 272 km rail route, including the world’s highest, chainb bridge.The rail route has promised all-visitor connectivity, which is decreasing the 800 km Delhi-Srinagar trip to 13 hours.This is not just the story of steel track, concrete arches and staggering figures. The USBRL is an odissi of workers and officials fighting elements that break the threat of guns, and separate separation from their families eventually “connects” Kashmir to the rest of India.
