Title - Kanjikode coach factory: Far from reality!

Palakkad: The much acclaimed Kanjikode rail coach factory, glorified as grant bonanza of  the Centre to Kerala, still remains a distant dream. The Rs.550 crore project, announced  four years ago, when Laloo Prasad was in charge of Railways, has not gone an inch ahead since its foundation stone laying ceremony.

Railway Minister, Dinesh Trivedi who laid the foundation stone on Feb 21, 2012, sanctioned Rs 35 crore in the budget. Dwivedi declared that the project, predicted to fulfill the rail dreams of the state, would be completed on public-private participation. After that, there was absolute silence about it from the Railway Ministry.

Raebareli Coach factory with a production cost of Rs.1,685 crore in Uttar Pradesh,  announced along with Kanjikode coach factory, has been completed in time. While the Kanjikode coach factory just remains as a stone, the coaches produced in Raebareli are running across the county connected to Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.

The railway allocation was just enough for making a compound wall in Kanjikode. The next step of the project is to assign a special officer from the railway board to undertake the project and invite global tender to execute the project. Railways has not made any clarification on the project which costs, even though question was raised in the Parliament.

It has been one year since the foundation stone laying function, but the state government has not made any effort to make it a reality. Now strong political pressure will be needed to fulfill the Kanjiko