RailEnquiry

MALAPPURAM: The state government will provide land free of cost for laying the Nilambur-Sulthan Bathery-Nanjangud rail line, connecting the Malabar region with Mysore in Karnataka and Gudallur in Tamil Nadu.The decision will be conveyed to the railway ministry soon, chief minister Oommen Chandy told a meeting with the Nilambur-Wayanad-Nilagiri rail road action council in Pulpally, Wayanad, on Saturday.The decision has cleared the decks for the project expected to resolve the traffic woes of Wayanad. Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had earlier clarified that the ministry was keen on laying the line, which will pass through the Western Ghat forests, if the state provided land for it.The government plans to form a state-level purchasing committee, on the model of land acquisition for Kochi Metro, to fix the land value in the region. It is estimated that 40 acres would have to be acquired for the first phase of the project - the 72-km Nanjangud-Sulthan Bathery line. The 164-km Bathery-Nilambur line will be laid in the second and third phases.

As many as 20 stations have been planned in the 236-km line and they are Nilambur Road, Edakkara, Vazhikadavu, Kanjirakkadavu, Birlavanam, Vendekkumpotti, Glen Rock, Chirankode, Vellarimala North , Vellarimala, Vaduvanchal, Ayyankolli, Chiral, Sulthan Bathery, Mavina Halla, Chikka Bairige, Yeswanthpur, Hura, Yechagundlu and Nanjangud town. A broad-gauge line already connects Mysore and Nanjangud.

"The rail line will help in bringing down the number of vehicles passing through the Wayanad wildlife sanctuary. It will also help cut the distance by over 200 km along the Kochi-Bangalore route," said Adv Rasheed of the action council.

The demand for the Nilambur-Sulthan Bathery-Nanjangud railway line is over 100 years' old, with the first proposal being presented in the budget of the People's Council of Mysore in 1881. Various surveys had followed this, but to no avail. A group of railway officials had visited Nilambur recently as part of a new survey.