Rail Budget 2014: Kerala ‘wish-list’ shown the door

Thiruvananthapuram: While  the state is lamenting  the treatment it has received in the railway budget, several projects announced in previous budgets have not made much progress either.

Take the ambitious project to convert the Punalur-Sengottai and Palakkad-Pollachi line into broad gauge, which has been bogged down by financial constraints  although  80 per cent of the work was scheduled to be completed this year.

The Punalur-Sengottai section was part of the 325-km Kollam- Sengottai-Tenkasi-Tirunelveli- Thiruchendur gauge conversion   project, inaugurated in 2010 and needed Rs 150 crore this year to meet its deadline of  December 2014.  

The Palakkad-Pollachi line  is also waiting allocation of Rs 150 crore for resumption of work started four years ago.

The doubling of railway tracks  too has been delayed  due  to paucity of funds. While the doubling of the stretch from Mulanthuruthi to Kuruppanthara will cost Rs 80 crore, it will take Rs 100 crore to double the stretch from Kuruppanthara to Chingavanam.

Sadly, the inordinate delay has also doubled the cost of the doubling work. While it was estimated to cost Rs 530 crore in 2004, it will today need around Rs 1,100 crore to complete.

On the positive side , some progress has been made on track doubling with the state government transferring  239 acres to the ministry of railways at a cost of Rs 33.70 crores in August , 2012.

But the  depots at Nemom and Kottayam that were announced in previous budgets to provide periodical maintenance for coaches  have not seen the light of day and no headway has been made in establishing a railway medical college and bottling plants announced for Thiruvananthapuram a couple of years ago.

There is also no sign of the halt stations announced at Vandanam near the Alappuzha Medical college and at Nedumbasserry near the Cochin international airport.

Meanwhile, the industry chambers in Kerala have generally welcomed the thrust placed on foreign direct investment and private investments in the budget presented by the Railway minister Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday.  

"The Cochin Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomes the Government's decision to allow 100 per cent FDI in the Indian Railways. The decision to finance future projects through the PPP mode is a pragmatic one", C.P. Mammen, president of Cochin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said.

"The realisation that the railways should not depend on fare hikes alone is a positive one", he said.

Although the chambers welcomed the general thrust of the budget most of them expressed disappointment over the treatment meted out to the demands of the state in the budget.

"No other railway budget has neglected the demands of Kerala in this fashion", said K.P. Aboobaker, vice president of Malabar Chamber of Commerce.