Railways should honour the commitments made in successive budgets to Kerala and take steps to infuse funds for completion of doubling, electrification, and improving the line capacity, Principal Adviser to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation E. Sreedharan has said.
Speaking to The Hindu here, with the Rail Budget to be subsumed in the General Budget, Mr. Sreedharan said the State should ensure that Railways provided funds for projects that were announced in the earlier budgets. “Railways is a Central subject and Railways should fund all the doubling, gauge conversion, and electrification works in Kerala as they are line capacity works,” Mr. Sreedharan, a former State Planning Board Member, said.
“The State is struggling to mobilise funds for new projects and create infrastructure and Railways should not arm-twist Kerala to share cost for doubling of the Thiruvananthapuram- Kanyakumari line,” he said.
Mr. Sreedharan said once the State started to share the cost of doubling, Railways would set it as a precedence and put pressure on the State to lay new lines and initiate line capacity works on its own. “Why should Kerala partner it,” he quipped.
Voicing his opposition to the Angamaly-Sabari line, he said the line would be a liability to the State as there would be no traffic on the corridor. Instead, the government should push for the 55-km Guruvayur-Tirunavaya line and electrification of the Shoranur-Mangaluru line.
The Guruvayur-Tirunavaya line will help 50 per cent of trains bypass Shoranur Junction and will be a boost to the Ponnani port.
Kerala Rail Development Corporation Ltd, the joint venture for cost sharing of rail projects between Kerala and Railways, should concentrate on new projects needed for the State, he said.
There is “no sense” in having a third line and introducing a rapid rail transit system for the 125.65-km Thiruvananthapuram Central-Chengannur corridor for short-distance commuters at a cost of ₹ 3,063 crore.
Instead, Mr. Sreedharan said, the State should go for automatic signalling that would double the line capacity and introduce suburban trains using MEMU rakes. “The State is being taken for a ride by proponents of the RRTS. The MEMU rakes should be procured by the KRDL through Railways to waive sales tax. BEML can supply it in one year,” he added.
Suburban trains should be introduced on the Kollam-Neyyattinkara, Thrissur-Alappuzha, Ernakulam-Kottayam, and Kannur-Tirur stretches. The trains should stop at all stations and run at 60 km per hour. The Central Road Safety funds should be used for avoiding level crossings, he said.
