The Palakkad Division of the Southern Railway has begun works for constructing an underpass for wild elephants below the railway line connecting Tamil Nadu and Kerala near Ettimadai in Coimbatore district.
Sources with the Palakkad Division said that preliminary works for the construction of an underpass for wild elephants started at the location ‘km 505A/400-500’ on the ‘B’ line [of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ twin single line], in a reserve forest area of Madukkarai forest range of the Coimbatore Forest Division.
A second underpass will be constructed at the location ‘km 506/900 - 506A/00’, also on the ‘B’ line, after the completion of the first one. The Railways have sanctioned ₹7.49 crore for the project, which is first of its kind undertaken by the Southern Railway.
Sources from the Palakkad Division said that arrangements, including temporary girders and CC Cribs, have been taken to the first location. Two temporary girders will be set up after assembling the required materials. The railway line will be blocked for 10-and-a-half hours for the work.
They said that the substructure for the huge underpass, with a vertical clearance of six metres and a width of 18.3 metres, will be a cast-in-situ concrete structure. The superstructure will be a composite girder which will be placed by side slewing methodology, added sources.
On the Tamil Nadu side, ‘A’ and ‘B’ lines run 1.8 km and 2.8 km through Solakarai forest beat of Madukkarai forest range. Elephants that move between Kerala and Tamil Nadu sides use the forest patch and adjoining agricultural fields, crossing railway lines.
According to the Forest Department, a total of 11 elephants have been killed in six major accidents since 2008 on the Tamil Nadu side alone.
A committee constituted by the Project Elephant Division of the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change to study elephant fatalities on the tracks had reported that 24 pachyderms were killed in 19 accidents between Palakkad Junction and Madukkarai from 1978 to March 15, 2021. In November 2021, three elephants were mowed down by a train on ‘A’ line on the Tamil Nadu side. A female elephant was mowed down by a train near Kanjikode on the Kerala side in October this year.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Forest Department is taking measures to install an artificial intelligence (AI) based warning system to prevent elephant fatalities for 13 km on the twin single lines ‘A’ and ‘B’.
