CBI books chief engineer of USBRL project for bribery

Jammu, Feb 11 (IANS) Officials said on Monday that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had booked a chief engineer of the Konkan Railways for alleged bribery to clear the pending bills of a company involved in the construction of the Katra-Dharam section of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway link project (USBRL).

Sumeet Khajuria, a 2005-batch IRSE (Indian Railway Service of Engineers) officer has been named as an accused in an FIR lodged by the CBI along with Paras Railtech Private Limited and its directors Rajesh Kumar Jain, Pushp Raj Singh, and Sulabh Rawat, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, CBI sources said.

"The FIR says that Khajuria and the directors of the company were indulging in corrupt practices in clearing pending bills and revising estimates related to the removal of tunnel muck in the execution of the ambitious project supervised by the Konkan Railway Corporation Limited," sources said.

The ambitious multi-billion USBRL has been tested for the operationalisation of commercial train service.

Sources added that the railway link will likely be formally inaugurated this month, depending on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's engagement.

The Vande Bharat train will operate on the railway link between the rest of the country and the Valley.

The laying of the world's tallest railway bridge and India's first cable-stayed railway bridge are some of the engineering marvels that went into fulfilling the more than 70-year-old dream of a railway link between Kashmir Valley and the rest of the country.

This will greatly boost tourism, horticulture, industry, education, and the common traveller. The Jammu-Srinagar highway often remained closed during heavy rain/snowfall, and it involved exerting travel through mountain tops vulnerable to landslides, shooting stones, and earth-caving hazards.