RailEnquiry

The state government’s decision — taken on Thursday — to withdraw its appeal against the stayorder on construction of the East-West Metro Corridor’s Bowbazar station has caught the railways on the wrong foot. Though the Union cabinet has cleared a proposal to hand over 74% share of the project to the Indian Railways, the process is yet to be completed. However, the railways, on Thursday itself, hastily moved a recall petition before the division bench, praying that it wished to continue with the appeal against the single-judge order.
    “What else could we have done? We moved a recall petition in the high court,” said minister of state for railways Adhir Chowdhury.
    Senior railway officials in Delhi, however,confirmed that the formalities associated with change in the shareholding pattern were yet to be completed. The railways will take over 50% share held by the Bengal government. It will also take over nearly half of the share of the Union ministry of urban development. It is still to be decided though whether the East-West Corridor will operate as a Special Purpose Vehicle of the Indian Railways or be placed under an existing zone like the Metro Railway.
    “The project has now become a ‘nobody’s baby’, thanks to the unprofessional management and politics involved. Funding will be a major problem even after the formal handover to the railways. There are indications that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) — which is funding 46.22% (Rs 2,253 crore) of the project with a moratorium of 18 years — will withdraw due to the time-and-cost overrun. The problem is not only with construction of a station at Bowbazar. Even the rehabilitation of evictees in Duttabad will take nearly three more years. The funding agency won’t wait for this or a fresh alignment. The problem is that nobody in Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) seems to have full details of what is going on,” said a railway official who has worked at an advisory level with the KMRC.
    According to another official in Delhi, there is a high risk of the project grinding to an abrupt halt due to funds crunch. It is highly unlikely that the railways will fund the project if JICA or other funding agencies pull out of the Rs 4,874 crore project. The corridor was to be completed by 2014-15 but has already been delayed by over a year. This has also added to the cost.
    “We really don’t have much hope for the project unless the bottlenecks are removed. With the Bengal government pulling out, there will be little hope of any assistance from that end, at least in removing the hurdles. The railways’ experience with attracting private investment hasn’t been too good either. Even the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor is facing trouble due to lack of funding. Less than 25% of the project has been completed till now and important stages in the Central Business District and tunneling under the Hooghly are yet to start,” he said.
LEFT IN THE LURCH
PROBLEMS SO FAR
Handover to the railways taking long Removal of encroachers Re-alignment Construction of Bowbazar station
IMPENDING THREATS 1 Funding agency JICA may move out of the project due to time and cost overrun 2 If JICA pulls out, it’s unlikely that the railways will fund the entire project
WORST-CASE SCENARIO
    If all glitches are not removed and work doesn’t start soon, there’s a possibility of the project coming to a grinding halt