The State government will convene a meeting of all stakeholders in Ernakulam on April 24 to sort out the issues facing land acquisition for the doubling of the railway track between Ernakulam and Kayamkulam and the proposed Angamali-Sabarimala and the Guruvayur-Tirunavaya lines.
A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting between Union Minister of State for Railways E. Ahamed and Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan at the Secretariat here on Tuesday.
Both of them and the MPs and the legislators of the areas concerned would attend the meeting.
It was decided that the State government would look into inclusion of land acquisition for railway projects in the fast-track scheme.
Nedumbassery station
The construction of a railway station at Nedumbassery and the final alignment of the Angamali-Sabarimala and the Guruvayur-Tirunavaya stretches figured at the meeting.
The Chief Minister was informed that only 18.76 hectares of the 82.67 hectares of land needed for doubling of the Ernakulam-Kayamkulam section, 8.83 hectares out of the 24.24 hectares for doubling of the Kayamkulam- Ambalapuzha stretch and 8 hectares of the 517 hectares needed for the Angamali-Sabarimala stretch had been acquired and handed over to the Railways.
The work on various overbridges figured in the discussions, especially the slow progress of the work on some of them in Malabar.
The Chief Minister was informed that the Main Line Electric Multiple Units (MEMU) for short-haul commuters could be introduced only on the completion of doubling projects as the existing line capacity was not sufficient to introduce these trains.
He was told that the Railways were contemplating a feasibility study for the Chennai-Bangalore-Coimbatore-Ernakulam stretch of the proposed high-speed passenger corridor.
The Railways are taking steps to accelerate the development of the wagon components factory at Cherthala to produce components for wagons and coaches.
Chief Secretary Neela Gangadharan, General Manager of Southern Railway Deepak Kishan, Divisional Railway Manager Rajiv Dutt Sharma and others were present.
