Mizoram: Thousands in Kolasib district to boycott LS Polls if widening of NH is not done

Aizawl: Over 1,700 landowners and their families along the National Highway- 306 and NH-6 between Vairengte in Kolasib district and Sairang in Aizawl district on Monday threatened to stage a strike by refraining from exercising their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls if the government fails to meet their demand within a deadline.

The landowners have demanded the state forest department give forest clearance to a construction company to execute the widening of the national highway between Vairengte and Sairang into four lanes.

They demanded the state government to meet their demands on or before April 15 failing which the landowners and their families will not cast their votes in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls slated for April 19.

“We urge the government to resolve the matter on or before April 15. If it fails to meet our demands within the deadline, we will boycott the Lok Sabha polls by not casting our votes,” Kolasib District Landowners’s Association leader James Vanlalringa told a press conference in Aizawl on Monday.

He alleged that widening or 4-laning of NH-306 and NH-6 between Vairengte and Sairang could not be commenced by National Highway Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), a Centrally owned construction company because the state forest department issued a stay order to the construction company claiming that a long stretch of the national highway fall under notified forest area- Roadside Reserved Forest and Riverine Reserved Forest.

He claimed that all the areas or lands where the widening of the national highway would be executed now belonged to private landowners and there are no more notified forest areas.

James also claimed that the stay order issued by the forest department was quashed by the Gauhati High Court, which rejected the claim by the forest department that the area falls under the notified forest area in January 2021.

He said that the state cabinet in its meeting in December last year had decided to go as per the high court order in order to commence work for widening of the national highway.

“Three years have already passed since the high court order but widening of the national highway could not be commenced till today due to the problem created by the forest department,” he said.

James said they wanted the widening work to be commenced as early as possible and they also received compensation as permissible.

NH-306 (approximately 90 km), which begins at Silchar in Assam's Barak valley and runs southward till Kolasib, is the lifeline of Mizoram as most supplies come through this highway.

It is joined with NH-6, which terminates near Zokhawthar on the India-Myanmar border.