Title - State government will have to share financial burden

With the announcement in the Railway budget that the Union Ministry is holding talks with the state government with regard to the coach factory in Kanjikode, it is quite obvious that given the precarious financial position of the Railways, the state government also needs to do its bit.“The announcement that talks are being held with the state government is a subtle hint that the Railways expects the state government to chip in with finances for the project.“Earlier, former Union Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi had said that the Rs 550-crore coach factory would be implemented under public-private partnership (PPP) in which the Railways would hold 24 per cent and the private partner, which would be selected through global expression of interest, holding the balance 76 per cent. But now, the budget is silent about the PPP model,” said highly placed sources in the Railways.If a global player bags the contract to manufacture the LHB coaches with a controlling stake of 76 per cent, they will eye the whole South Asian market and therefore, there is no guarantee that the Railways will get adequate supply, they said.A sum of Rs 54 crore was set aside in the budget for the coach factory on Tuesday but Railway officials said that it was not clear as to how the funds will be utilised.The present status of the coach factory is that a total of 230.1 acres have been acquired and handed over by the state government to the Railways, for which a sum of Rs 32 crore was paid as land value. Another 90 acres of forest land has been sought for de-notification and the proposal has been sent to the Ministry of Environment.

“The announcement that the survey will be done for the Shoranur-Mangalore third line is a welcome move since it will help the movement of goods from the Vallarpadom container terminal,” said C E Chakkunny, president of the Malabar Rail Users’ Association.

“The budget is one of the best since it lays stress on modernisation of passenger reservation system and the signaling system which was long overdue.

Sufficient funds have also been sanctioned for doubling, electrification, gauge conversion and the construction of railway overbridges.

The state government should see to it that funds are secured for the infrastructure works through the Chief Administrative Officer posted in Thiruvananthapuram from the Southern Railway,“ said the former chief engineer of Konkan Railway C Raju.

Railway passengers also welcomed the sanctioning of the Shoranur-Kozhikode passenger, the extension of the Ernakulam-Thrissur MEMU train to Palakkad, the weekly Mangalore-Kacheguda (Andhra Pradesh) weekly Express via Coimbatore, Palakkad and Kozhikode, the Lokmanya Tilak-Kochuveli express through the Konakan route and the Visakhapatnam-Kollam weekly express via Coimbatore and Palakkad.

The Kochuveli-Chandigarh weekly express has been made bi-weekly. The gauge conversion of the Palakkad-Meenakshipuram stretch, which is lagging on the Palakkad-Pollachi route has been stated to be completed by March 2014.