Rajatalab Group Gives Sit-in Notice From 28 September Seeking Rail Overbridge

A local traffic forum in Rajatalab has put a date on its next step. Jam Mukti Sangharsh Morcha on Monday handed a memorandum to the Rajatalab sub-divisional magistrate seeking a railway overbridge and said it would begin a sit-in near Rajatalab railway station from 28 September if the demand stays unmet.

The group’s complaint is about daily congestion rather than a single festival jam. Members point to the Aswari-to-Rajatalab market stretch and the national-highway approach that links Mirzapur-side and south-western villages into the city. The same corridor serves inter colleges, a tehsil complex, a vegetable mandi and more than fifty other institutions, they say, so a closed level crossing quickly stacks buses, bikes and temper.

Morcha convenor Neeraj Pandey and associates including Gaurav Maurya, Rajeev Maurya, Raju Yadav, Kartikeya and Abhishek Pathak argued that Mohansarai already has a rail bridge while Rajatalab’s busier approach still depends on the gate. Last year’s encroachment markings, they added, did not permanently clear the shoulders, so parked goods and temporary stalls still eat carriageway when the crossing is shut.

A sit-in notice is not a constructed bridge. What Monday’s memorandum does is put the demand on the sub-divisional magistrate’s table with a calendar: six days from the notice week to 28 September, then a presence near the station if no movement is visible. How the administration and railways respond — survey, estimate, or a written holding reply — will decide whether that sit-in becomes a short civic vigil or a longer roadside camp.

Rajatalab’s jam problem is familiar to anyone who has timed a train gate on a market morning. School vans, mandi trucks and highway traffic share too little asphalt when barriers drop. An overbridge or underpass is the standard engineering answer; cost, land and railway clearances are the standard brakes.

For now the facts on record are limited and civic: a memorandum lodged with the SDM, a named organisation, a specific infrastructure ask, and a sit-in date of 28 September near Rajatalab railway station. The rest will turn on whether the file moves before that date.

Shopkeepers along the market stretch say gate closures during peak mandi hours erase an entire sales window. Parents timing school vans around train schedules describe the same pinch from the other direction. An overbridge would not erase encroachment on the shoulders, but it would stop the hard stop that turns a two-minute train into a twenty-minute crawl.

District officials customarily acknowledge such memoranda and forward engineering queries to railways and the public works side. Whether that paper trail produces a survey team before 28 September is the open question. The Morcha’s notice does not block the crossing; it only promises a sit-in presence near the station if the overbridge file stays cold.

Commuters from Mirzapur-bound villages already treat Rajatalab as a daily bottleneck on the way into Banaras. Their interest is practical: a bridge that keeps market, tehsil and college traffic moving when the gate is down. Monday’s memorandum puts that ask on record with a date attached.