Meghalaya: Jaintia Students’ Union Threatens Stir Against Proposed Railway Lines to Jowai, Demands ILP First

Shillong: The Jaintia Students’ Union (JSU) issued an ultimatum to the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) and the Central government, warning of intense agitation if survey work begins for two new railway lines into Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya, without first enacting strong legal safeguards for tribal land and demographic protection.

The warning comes in direct response to the inclusion of final location surveys for two major projects in the 2024–25 Union Budget: a 79-km Jowai–Khliehriat–Chandranathpur line and a 135-km Chaparmukh–Jowai broad-gauge route.

In a hard-hitting statement, the JSU accused authorities of attempting to “forcibly impose” railways on the region in the absence of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime or any equivalent law to regulate outsider influx in Meghalaya.

“Allowing railways into Jaintia Hills without these protective mechanisms will pose a grave threat to our hills, our land, and the very identity of the indigenous people,” the union declared.

The students’ body highlighted long-pending rehabilitation issues in areas like Them Iew Mawlong, where families displaced by earlier surveys are still awaiting compensation and resettlement. “These unresolved grievances expose the government’s inability to handle even small-scale displacement, let alone the massive impact a full railway project would bring,” the statement added.

While clarifying that the JSU is not opposed to development in principle, it stressed that progress cannot come at the cost of tribal rights or open the floodgates to unchecked migration — a decades-old fear in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills.

NFR officials confirmed that the Chaparmukh–Jowai line, which will provide the shortest rail connectivity between central Assam and Jowai via several Assam towns and Dima Hasao district, has finally received formal sanction after years of delay. Preliminary surveys could begin as early as 2026 “if the situation remains peaceful and no fresh protests erupt,” a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

Past railway projects in the region — including the scrapped Tetelia–Byrnihat line and the stalled Byrnihat–Shillong route — have repeatedly been halted by civil society groups, traditional bodies, and political parties over identical concerns.

Despite repeated assurances from the Conrad Sangma-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government that no railway project will be forced without local consensus, ground-level movement on both proposed lines remains frozen amid mounting pressure from indigenous organisations.