Madurai: The Railway Passengers Welfare Association demands intercity train services to and from Bengaluru and Coimbatore as those cities have become the employment hubs for Madurai youth.
As both these cities offer more job opportunities in services and manufacturing sectors, more number of people travel to these cities on a daily basis.
However, the southern division does not have intercity train services to cater to the demand, said K Padmanathan, general secretary of the railway passengers welfare association.
At present two express trains — Thoothukudi- Mysore Express and Nagercoil- Bangalore (via Madurai) — were operated everyday in the evening hours. However, as most of the seats were occupied from the origin itself, people in Madurai were forced to opt for other modes of transportation, he claimed.
In the case of Coimbatore, the railway authorities had stopped the intercity train service in 2005 after they had taken up track gauge conversion work between Pollachi and Coimbatore.
“Now we have only two train services daily - an express train from Nagercoil, but it was not preferred by people because it reaches Madurai at midnight and a passenger train at noon from Madurai which was overcrowded most of the time,”
Many local business people who travel to the textile city for business opportunities regularly also found travelling very difficult due to the lack of train services. “As the railway authorities informed us that the gauge conversion work will be over within the next month, we are hopeful that the intercity service to Coimbatore will resume soon,” said the members of the organisation.
The association also demanded that the railway authorities extend the Salem-Karur passenger service and the Amirtha Express up to Madurai.
“Extension of the Thiruvananthapuram-Palakkad Amirtha Express to Madurai would be helpful for the people both in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It would be great relief for Palani-bound pilgrims from Kerala and those from Tamil Nadu visiting Thiruvanathapuram,” he said.
