While Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu totally avoided any mention of formation of new divisions – a demand of the people of Mangaluru for a long time now – citizens can only hope certain statements from his budget speech will be beneficial to the city. Barring allocation of Rs. 10 lakh for a second entrance to Mangalore Central station, the grand plan to provide world class facilities at Mangalore Junction station has no mention in the budget.
One has to take a cue from his statement that the process for development of the already selected stations would continue. It was the then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee who had announced that Mangalore Central would be made a world class station nearly six years ago (July 3, 2009) but authorities had subsequently asserted that Mangalore Junction had been finally chosen for it. The Southern Railways had got a project report ready for Mangalore Central for world class facilities, but was yet to initiate similar process for the station on the outskirts of the city.
Mr. Prabhu said in his budget speech that “a transformed station can change the skyline of small and medium cities and bring in revenues, and become an incubator of local economy… We propose to revamp the station redevelopment policy completely and simplify processes for faster redevelopment by inviting open bids from interested parties. The present stations will be available for development on ‘as is where is’ basis, to exploit the space and air rights on concession basis. Land will not be sold.”
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He also assured that “for quick decision making, the Zonal and Divisional offices will be empowered”.
Whether these statements would mean anything to Mangalore Junction is to be seen.
Paschima Karavali Rail Yatri Abhivriddhi Samithi Convener Anil Hegde, though disappointed with no mention of Mangaluru division or introduction of new trains in the budget, said that the budget aimed at strengthening the existing infrastructure and was welcome.
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The results would be known in the long run, he said.