RailEnquiry

MARGAO: Minister of State for Railways Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, on Saturday,  assured to re-start the skybus project of the Konkan Railway Corporation (KRC) by overcoming the financial problem.  Commenting  on the skybus project, which has been the failure, the minister said that “despite having financial implications,  the KRC had tried the new phenomena and later viewed  it as non-viable  for  it could not fetch the expected revenue  and that led to  the scrapping of the project.”

“I feel that the KRC should have a re-look at this phenomena as this is one of salient features of the KRC,’’ he opined.

Acknowledging  the  `wonderful’  service being provided by the Konkan Railway Corporation (KRC), the minister  said  it needs to emulated by the railway sectors.

Chowdhury, during his  first  Goa  visit as the minister, inspected the innovation of the KRC including the anti-collision device (ACD).

The Minister said that “though the KRC had financial  problems, the officials  tried to  give best of the services  to the commuters and they need to be praised for that.”

He visited the Margao railway station and later Verna station. He inspected the  ACD.

The managing director of KRC, Banu Tayal, informed that the management had added skybus to the urban transport act  to enable to  get  the necessary certificate for commencing the project.

“The  necessary changes are effected  in the  urban  transport act and the Railway Safety Commission  would see about it later,’’ he said  adding nearly Rs 100 crore are required for  the research works.

Tayal informed that the   Indian Railway  has already financed the KRC and urged the  state government “to pitch in for the KRC effective skybus project.”