Legislative Council member Ivan D’Souza on Saturday said making the Mangaluru Railway Station world class appears to be not on the agenda of the Southern Railway.
He told presspersons here that at the recently held meeting of Zonal Railway Users’ Consultative Committee at Chennai, Southern Railway General Manager Vasisht Johri told him that the world class station was only on paper. “Nowhere in India has the concept become a reality and so the case with Mangaluru too,” the General Manager told him. There are plans to improve facilities at Mangaluru Central Railway Station and nothing more than that.
Mr. D’Souza said the then Railway Minister had announced that Mangaluru, along with other stations, would be developed into a world class railway station.
‘MP shirking duty’
The MLC said the Lok Sabha member representing Dakshina Kannada has failed to ensure that various Central projects, including those of the Railways, are implemented. Mere announcements are not enough, he said.
Besides ensuring that Mangaluru gets a world-class railway station, the LS member should have worked hard in getting a Railway Division for Mangaluru or at least merging it with South-Western Railway or Konkan Railway. Though Southern Railway has only 40-km route network in Mangaluru region, it gets huge revenue through New Mangalore Port Trust. Still, the zone has not been responding to demands for Railway development in its jurisdiction, Mr. D’Souza regretted.
Similarly, the LS member has failed to ensure that the ongoing National Highway widening projects are completed within the specified timeframe, the MLC alleged.
