The interim Union railway budget presented on Wednesday failed to address any of the pressing needs of the district, leaving the stakeholders fuming.
As most of the previous rail budgets had left the district in the cold, bare minimum was expected this time around especially since it was an interim exercise. However, the stakeholders found the budget disappointing despite setting the bar of expectations very low.
P. Rajeev, MP, said the budget had turned out to be one of the worst for the district. “The longstanding demand to develop the old railway station as a hub of suburban railway network has been neglected despite taking up the matter with the Ministry of Railways and the railway board,” he told The Hindu .
The demand for developing Tripunithura railway station as the eastern entry to the district and Kalamassery as a hub of freight transport considering the potential of the Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal has also been turned down.
The budget had been silent on the proposals to develop south railway station into a world class one and introduction of automated signal system at least in the Ernakulam-Thrissur sector, Mr. Rajeev said.
Passengers from the district may benefit from the trains – one to Bangalore, which is a premier one and another to Nizamuddin – that operates twice a week from Thiruvananthapuram.
Paul Manvettom, president of All Kerala Railway Users’ Association, said the introduction of a premium train in the Thiruvananthapuram-Bangalore sector, which passes through Ernakulam, with a variable fare depending on occupancy and seasons along the lines of airlines, betrayed 6,646 million travellers.
The move to fix passenger fare depending on the variation in fuel price was a prelude to immense hardships awaiting train passengers, he said
“The budget had also failed to grant a couple of MEMUs as promised and a daily train to Guwahati to meet the needs of about 30 lakh migrant workers,” Mr. Manvettom said.
P. Unnikrishnan, president (Thiruvananthapuram division), Southern Railway Mazdoor Union said the budget had failed to gauge the importance of MEMUs, which are crucial to the connectivity between stations in a State like Kerala where there are stations every 30 minutes unlike other States where there is considerable distance between stations.
He said the budget’s perceived emphasis on safety sounds hollow in the absence of modernization of signalling system. “For instance, there are more than 100 manually operated railway gates in the Alappuzha-Kayamkulam stretch, posing threats to human lives. He said that even minor modernisation works that had taken place in the south railway station, like the escalator, was not done out of the funds allocated in the rail budgets. The budget had also failed to bring respite to the severely stretched Railway Protection Force.
Doubling of tracks in the Ernakulam-Kayamkulam stretch via Kottayam is another casualty, which had not allocated any funds for completing the work. So far, the work has been completed in the Ernakulam-Mulanthuruthy stretch and the Kayamkulam-Changanassery stretch. The Union Railway Minister had neglected the State’s demand for a Rs. 400-crore allocation for completing the doubling in the Mulanthuruthy-Chegannur stretch.
The never ending wait for the Angamaly-Sabari rail line is likely to continue, as there is no allocation towards the project in the budget. Only the work on the 7-kilometer stretch between Angamaly and Kalady had been completed. The demand for an immediate allocation of Rs. 157 crore towards land acquisition for implementing the project along the renewed alignment stood rejected.
Mathew Paul, president of All Kerala Railway Passengers’ Association, said the usual neglect meted out to the State in the rail budget was the result of the failure of the eight Union ministers from the State to leverage their influence.
