Having served a couple of eviction notices during this year, the Railway is geared up to evict encroachments along the path leading to the Tiruverumbur Railway Station, it is learnt.
Last month, the Railway authorities had sought support of police personnel of Tiruverumbur station for carrying out the operation, but shelved its action in deference to the request made by the district administration to hold peace talks with the residents of Burma Colony, sources said.
The encroached portion of the land was surveyed to determine the extent belonging to the Railways and the Revenue authorities. The list of people in the locality eligible for land in an alternative location has also been taken, local sources said.
“"The Railway has documents to claim ownership of the land since pre-Independence era. However, since the people have been living in the locality for more than four decades, I had requested the Railway to show come consideration on humanitarian grounds,” Tiruverumbur MLA Anbil Mahesh Pollamozhi said.
After upgrading the Tiruverumbur station with Adarsh status a few years back, the Railway had kept pending the work on easy accessibility.
The encroachments on the path to a distance of about 200 metres from the Tiruchi-Thanjavur Highway entirely blocks the view of the upgraded station. The narrow path hinders two-way movement of four-wheelers along the stretch.
The contention of the travelling public is that accessibility factor is vital since the patronage will rise manifold once the stoppages are announced at the station for long-distance express trains in the wake of the completion of the Tiruchi-Thanjavur track-doubling project. At present, only the Mayiladuthurai-Mysuru Express and passenger trains bound for Karaikal, Nagore, Thanjavur stop at the station. Announcement of stoppage of express trains to Ernakulam, Chennai and Coimbatore is expected in the next time table, sources said.
