Chikmagalur: About three decades after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi promised a railway line to Chikmagalur town, the Kadur-Chikmagalur railway line was inaugurated on her 96th birth anniversary by Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday.
Chikmagalur was the constituency which gave political rebirth to Indira Gandhi in the 1978 byelection after she lost the general election. It was then that Gandhi promised a railway connection to Chikmagalur.
This was a long standing demand of people of Chikmagalur, as the district headquarters had no railway connection and they had to travel to Kadur.
The railway project remained a promise for about one and half decades and finally, the Kadur-Chikmagalur-Sakleshpur new line project (92.2 km long) was sanctioned in 1996-97 when H.D. Deve Gowda was Prime Minister.
The first phase of work between Kadur-Chikmagalur was taken up during 1999-2000. It took 13 long years to complete just 45.125 km of railway line!
The work continued at a snail’s pace till March 2010 due to inadequate funds and delay in land acquisition. The government’s decision to bear 50 per cent cost of the project cost and speed up land acquisition expedited the project.
