M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, has expressed discontent over the slow pace of railway works in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region.
Addressing a press conference at Aiwan-E-Shahi guest house in Kalaburagi on Monday, he appealed to the Union Railway Ministry to continue working on the initiatives he had taken during his brief tenure as Union Railway Minister and to speed up the works that are under way.
“In order to develop railway infrastructure in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, I, as Union Railway Minister, had taken many initiatives such as opening a railway divisional office in Kalaburagi, laying of tracks between the Bidar and Kalaburagi stretch and the Wadi and Gadag stretch, electrification of railway tracks, and construction of railway over-bridges at several level-crossings at Wadi. While a few of these are yet to take off despite having budgetary allocations, the rest seem to be moving at a snail’s pace,” Mr. Kharge said.
He added that the issue of scarcity of sand that had delayed tunnel work on the Kalaburagi-Bidar railway stretch had been resolved by involving both the Kalaburagi Regional Commissioner and the Raichur Deputy Commissioner who would facilitate quality sand extraction from Raichur district. “I hope the work will be completed by September,” he said.
Highlighting the statutory issues involved in procurement of gravel required for track-doubling works, Mr. Kharge said that he had talked to the others concerned for facilitating hassle-free procurement. “As per the new rules, permission is required for gravel mining. Upon my direction, the Regional Commissioner has asked the contractor to collect gravel from government land and only then approach private ones if a sufficient quantity is not available in the former source,” he said.
Link road
Mr. Kharge said that a sum of ₹300 crore, of the sanctioned ₹1,100 crore, was already released by the Union government for the construction of the proposed link road around Kalaburagi to connect two National Highways – 150E and 150A.
The proposed link road will form the Outer Ring Road after the stretch between Afzalpur Road (NH-150E) and Jevarge Road (NH-150A) that is not included in the project is constructed. “We have been given the green signal to prepare a detailed project report for the leftover stretch between Afzalpur Road and Jevargi Road. Once both the projects are completed, Kalaburagi will get another ring road,” Mr. Kharge said.
Grand alliance
Mr. Kharge said that the party high command had initiated a process for forging a grand alliance (Mahaghatbandhan) with non-BJP parties at the national level ahead of the presidential election.
“The alliance would field a common candidate acceptable to all member parties. Those who are opposed to BJP’s divisive ideology too can vote for the alliance’s candidate protecting secular socialism,” he said.
Qamarul Islam, former Minister, Baburao Chinchansur, chairman, Karnataka State Border Development Authority, and Asagar Chulbul, chairman, Kalaburagi Urban Development Authority and others were present.
