The Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has set at rest all speculations about the establishment of the new Railway Division Kalaburagi by making a nominal allocation in the Railway Budget for the year 2015-16 presented in the Parliament on Thursday.
There was an air of uncertainty on whether the BJP-led NDA government would honour the commitment made by the previous UPA government conceding one of the long-pending demands for the establishment of a Railway Division headquartered at Kalaburagi.
While the previous Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda had made an allocation of Rs.1 lakh in the interim budget, Mr. Prabhu has allotted Rs. 46,000 for creating the infrastructure facility of proposed Gulbarga Railway Division in Kalaburagi.
The State government has already allocated more than 20 acres of land for the construction of the buildings required for the Gulbarga Division. The Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), which has been entrusted the work, has already fenced the allotted land.
According to the information available with the outgoing member of the Zonal Railway Users Consultative Committee of the Central Railway Sandeep Jawalkar, the Railway Minister has made an allocation of Rs. 20 crore for the proposed new railway line between Gadag-Wadi providing direct rail connectivity between the Hyderabad Karnataka and Bombay Karnataka regions. The Gadag-Wadi railway line is a cost sharing project and the State government has committed itself to provide the land free of cost and share the cost on 50:50 basis.
One of the major gains for the pending projects in the region was the allocation of Rs. 250 crore for the doubling of the line from Daund to Gulbarga and electrification of Pune-Gulbarga-Guntakal line. A sum Rs. 70 crore has been allocated for Gulbarga-Bidar new railway line. Of this, the share of the State government would be Rs. 25 crore and the remaining Rs. 35 crore would be borne by Indian Railways.
Mr. Jawalkar said a sum of Rs. 5 crore each has been provided for the proposed railway overbridge on the Gulbarga-Afsalpur Road and Gulbarga-Jewargi Road.
Rs. 46,000 has been allotted to create infrastructure for the proposed division
