Flaying the Railway Authorities for their failure in introducing more train services between Mettuppalayam and Coimbatore, Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK) has planned to stage a rail roko at Mettuppalayam railway station on Friday (April 9) at 7.30 a.m.
In a release, General Secretary of PDK, K. Ramakrishnan said that there had been a long struggle seeking trains between Mettuppalayam and Coimbatore and the railway administration had been remaining silent.
In 1970, there were six trains between Coimbatore and Mettuppalayam and in the 35 km stretch there used to be six railway stations.
Even as the population and vehicular traffic increased, the Southern Railway had travelled in the reverse direction, closing down railway stations en route and reducing the train service to just one. On either side of Mettuppalayam Road, there is a mushrooming of residential colonies, educational institutions and industrial units.
Mettuppalayam Road had become accident prone.
In fact, increasing road traffic is detrimental to the growth of tourism in the hill station i.e., Udhaga- mandalam.
