Kakapora in district Pulwama is mere 20 kms away from Kunsoo village of Shopian & the Govt of India is planning to connect it through a 27 kms rail line? This is quite unjustifiable. This project is officially known as Awantipora-Shopian railway line & the Railways Ministry had approved Final Location Survey-FLS along with four other lines, all of which fall in Kashmir division. In December 2023 during the winter session of parliament Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw provided detailed information about this project. He was replying in the Lok Sabha in response to a joint question by BJP MPs including Jugal Kishore Sharma (Jammu-Poonch), Bidyut Baran Mahato (Jamshedpur) and Jamyang Tsering Namgyal (former MP of Ladakh).

Final Location Survey

As per the reply given by Union Railways Minister Final Location Survey-FLS of five lines has been sanctioned in Jammu and Kashmir. The lines include doubling of Baramulla-Banihal section (135.5 kilometers), Baramulla-Uri (50 kilometers), Sopore-Kupwara (33.7 kilometers), Awantipora-Shopian (27.6 kilometers) and Anantnag-Bijbehara-Pahalgam (77.5 kilometers).
The train will pass through almost one dozen villages which are already well connected through a road network. The residents in this area have a small landholding and 80% of agricultural land has been converted into apple farms. An average family owns 2 to 3 kanals of apple orchards (less than half acre) and these below marginal orchardists are now worried as Final Location Survey – FLC is on. Masonry pillars with yellow colors are being erected in the villages & this has frustrated apple farmers especially in Babhar, Keegam, Check Niltrisal, Check Nazninpora, Kunsoo villages which are located in Pulwama and Shopian districts. With an aim of knowing the factual details this author along with some members of J&K Climate Action Group – JKCAG visited around half a dozen villages a few weeks back. We went to the site where these........

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