Title - Raw deal for Mangaloreans

Mangalore : The coastal city suffered another raw deal from authorities concerned, as the visit of Parliamentary Standing committee on Railways, scheduled to visit on Thursday, cancelled their plan at the last moment. The cancel intimation came in the late evening on Wednesday after Railway officials made all arrangements for the visit. Southern Railway Palghat division Public Relations Officer James Sebastian told Deccan Herald that he has no knowledge about the reason for cancellation. The Committee was expected to conduct a feasibility study for developing Mangalore central station and submit the report to government of India. The delegation was scheduled to reach Mangalore at 12 noon. Afternoon, a meeting with elected representatives and Railway higher officials were planned, besides, an overhaul of the entire station. Palghat Divisional Manager Piyush Agarval had reached here on wednesday, but returned to Kerala later, after he learnt about the cancellation of committee’s visit.Mangalore had pinned all it’s hopes on the scheduled visit as it has been a decade since the panel visited Mangalore. The last time the Parliamentary Standing committee on Railways visited here was on June 14, 2002. The long standing demand put forth by elected representatives and industrialists for the development of Mangalore Railway sector has been the formation of a separate division. The same issue dominated among the demands prepared by different organisations to present before the Parliamentary committee delegation. Authorities concerned here also shared the view that carving a Railway division with Mangalore as Headquarters, out of Palghat, Mysore and Konkan divisons can only bring in better development of this sector. However, if Mangalore division is created, with NMPT and MRPL coming under, it will ring the deathknell for Palghat division as the Kerala division’s majority of the revenue comes from the fleet charges of these two Public Sector Undertakings, sources said. Speaking to Deccan Herald, Kanara Chamber of Commerce President Mohammed Amin said that he could not understand why Mangalore Railway sector had always been at the receiving end. ‘’We have prepared a memorandum to submit before the Committee. Our demands include setting up of Mangalore Railway division under South Western Zone, commencement of new trains; Mangalore-Bangalore Superfast and Mangalore-Chennai via Bangalore,” he added. Interestingly, the Parliamentary Standing committee on Railways completed the visit to Hyderabad and Mumbai Railway station premises as per schedule, it is learnt.