Title - Land acquisition problems affecting railway works: GM

Issues like acquisition of lands and cut in financial allocation have affected development and infrastructure related works of the Railways, said General Manager of Southern Railway Rakesh Misra on Tuesday.He was here to inspect the Signal and Telecommunications Workshop at Podanur.Mr. Misra told The Hindu that the allocation of funds had come down from Rs. 1,100 last year to Rs. 560 crore in the current fiscal and this had a telling effect on the pace of various works being undertaken by the Railways. The increase in diesel and electricity charges also affected the financial stability of the Railways, he added.Kerala accounted for the maximum number of issues concerning land acquisition while it was relatively less in Tamil Nadu. Issues always cropped up when the lands identified for acquisition were wet/agricultural lands, he added.Mr.Misra was accompanied by the Divisional Railway Manager, Salem, Sujatha Jeyaraj. He said land acquisition issues as far as the Podanur - Pollachi gauge conversion stretch had been overcome and now the wait was for funds. “I have personally appealed to the Railway Board to sanction funds to complete the Podanur – Pollachi gauge conversion at the earliest in order to restore the rail connectivity of Western Tamil Nadu with the Southern districts,” Mr. Misra said.

Southern Railway was confident of completing the Pollachi – Palakkad gauge conversion by March 2014. Mr. Misra added that the Palani – Pollachi gauge conversion was in its final stages. The route was likely to be opened by 2014, after Commissioner of Rail Safety’s (CRS) inspection. Referring to safety, Mr. Misra said the objective of the Southern Railway was to eliminate 800 unmanned level crossings in a phased manner. Either these crossings would be manned or bridges constructed. In some cases, Southern Railway would bring in Limited Use Subway for light motor vehicles and two-wheelers with a restriction on the height of the vehicle.

At present, the railway was on the job of constructing bridges at over 100 level crossings. The rest would be taken up as and when the funds were available.

On the growth pattern, Mr.Rakesh Misra said there had been 2.3 per cent slide in the passenger traffic in the five months of this year. Considerable fall was from short distance unreserved ticket sale. With regard to freight traffic, Mr.Misra said there had been a 10 per cent to 12 per cent growth. However, the number of kilometres of ferrying the cargo had come down due to various factors and the fall in distance factor resulted in the revenue growth touching only eight to nine per cent.