OOTY: The row over the alleged dismantling of the heritage water tank in Ooty railway station continues to rage here with railway officials trying to play it down and Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) fans saying that they will fight till the finish.
Reports about dismantling of the heritage water tank and the secretary of the Coonoor Citizens’ Forum seeking a CBI enquiry into the happenings in NMR that appeared in DC on Friday seemed to have rattled the Railway administration reflected by an angry call made to this correspondent by Mr. G. V. Venkatesan, PRO at Salem division of the Southern Railway on Friday. He asked whether NMR fans have any evidence or carbon dating to say that the dismantled water tank is a century old heritage structure.
When this correspondent asked him that whether the Railways have any evidence to the contrary to prove that the water tank was only recently installed and has no heritage value, Mr. Venkatesh asked whether a water tank could be called a 'heritage piece'.
He said that there are hundreds of century-old temples along roadsides across Tamil Nadu and asked whether they could also be called heritage monuments.
This correspondent then pointed out that NMR aficionados claimed that they have some old records for proof. When asked about this, Mr. K. Natarajan, president of the Heritage Steam Chariot Trust, who raked up this issue, said that when the NMR service began in Ooty in 1908, only coal-fired steam locomotives were in service.
Had there not been a water tank, how water could have been supplied to the steam locomotives, he asked.
An old picture of the 1930s shows that there was a steam loco shed near the water tank. “We have taken this up with the executive director of Heritage Railway in India and also with the Railway Board,” he said and added his organisation would fight for the conservation of the heritage water tank in Ooty.
