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  Indian Railways News  / ECoR’s Rs279-cr plan for Bhubaneswar, Puri

General Manager of East Coast Railway Indra Ghosh on Saturday unveiled a comprehensive master plan for world-class facilities at the Bhubaneswar and Puri railway stations at an estimated cost of Rs279 crore.

An additional Rs137 crore is also planned to be spent to create a coaching complex at Malatipatpur near Puri.

In the presence of all the departmental heads of the ECoR and other senior functionaries, Ghosh made a power-point presentation which gave a glimpse into the way the two existing railway stations would be transformed into well-designed passenger terminals with all modern amenities, higher number of platforms and better access for both passengers and visitors.

The plans also include doubling of lines between Khurda Road, Cuttack and Puri.

In response to a question, Ghosh assured that facilities’ up-gradation and line-doubling activities would be over in time to handle the anticipated surge in passenger traffic for the Nabakalebar festival of Lord Jagannath at Puri.

A new Bhubaneswar railway station between Mancheswar and Barang is also planned as a satellite passenger terminal to take care of the increasing passenger load in the next few years. The existing Bhubaneswar station is due for a major revamping with multilevel car parking, smoother flow of traffic both inside and outside the station, additional platforms and much better passenger amenities.

In response to a question Ghosh said that a five-year plan has been prepared to address the issue of the unmanned level-crossings in the ECoR jurisdiction. The meet was coordinated by ECoR Chief Public Relations Officer RN Mahapatra.

  Indian Railways News  / Survey for high-speed rail sparks local ire

KOZHIKODE: Protest is brewing in various parts of Malappuram and Kozhikode districts against the on-going survey for the proposed Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod high-speed rail corridor.More than 200 people, including women and children, attended a protest meet against the rail corridor held at Thenhippalam in Malappuram on Saturday. Protesters alleged that the authorities had failed to clear apprehensions about the land to be acquired for the project, and the government had gone back on its promise that land at a width of only 15 metres would be acquired for constructing the rail line. They complained that the survey team marked the land at a width of 100 metre instead of 15 metre.In a related development, around 1,000 people took part in a protest march taken out by the 'High Speed Rail Pradhirodha Samithi' to the Kozhikode collectorate on Thursday. Addressing the march, the leaders of the samithi demanded the government to take immediate steps to remove the apprehensions about the alignment and the land acquisition for the project."The project would make thousands homeless and affect the environmental structure of the corridor," said Thayat Balan, an environmental activist.The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has already completed the survey in Atholi and Kakkodi panchayats in Kozhikode and in the coastal areas of Malappuram. The survey team has marked the land for the project with yellow paints. DMRC will prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) based on the survey. When the samithi leaders met people's representatives, including ministers, recently they had put to rest growing apprehension about the project by citing the government's direction to find an alignment that would spare houses, places of worship and densely populated areas. But protesters alleged that the survey team marked properties of temples at Vengeri, Kariyathankavu, Thanneerpanthal, Chelappram and Koyoli areas.High-speed rail corridors have been planned between Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram, and Kochi and Palakkad.The project would include elevated and underground rails. The distance between two pillars of the elevated rail would be 25 metres. It has been planned to acquire land at a width of 15 metres for elevated rails, which would be five metres above the ground level.

  Indian Railways News  / Railways import more goods from Pakistan than export

Ambala: Railways carried nearly three lakh tons of goods including millet, chemicals, petroleum products and rubber to Pakistan while imported over four lakh tons of cement, rock salt and dry fruit in the last fiscal.A total of 317 trains with 600 wagons crossed the border carrying goods and an equal number of goods trains came to India from Pakistan last year," NC Goel, Divisional Railway Manager of Ferozpur Division, told PTI.In 2011-12, railways exported 2, 84,386 tons of goods to Pakistan as against 1, 27,006 tons in 2010-11.The inward wagons from Pakistan carried 4,33,193 tons of goods in 2011-12, while 5,56,966 tons of goods were carried during 2010-11.The import from Pakistan is mostly cement, Goel said.On upgrading of Amritsar railway station, he said plans are afoot to develop it as a world class station in coordination with the Tourism Ministry.Rs 15 crore will be spent for upgrading the station, he said.Besides Amritsar, there are plans to convert Jalandhar and Ludhiana stations into world class stations, he said.

  Indian Railways News  / Gurgaon Rapid Metro Rail ready for trials

GURGAON: In a move that promises better connectivity in the city soon, the first train set of the Rapid Metro Rail that had arrived in the city on Tuesday from China was placed on the tracks on Thursday. The trial runs are all set to begin in a fortnight. The authorities claimed that the operations would begin in March as scheduled. However the Shankar Chowk station, one among the six on the network, would be initially closed as the work is lagging behind here.The good news is that the Delhi Metro commuters will not have to purchase a separate token to travel by the Rapid Metro. They can use the same token or smart card to do so and the fare, even though yet to be finalized, is likely to be a flat rate for all the six stations."The first train has already arrived and the remaining four will arrive by mid-December. We will begin the trial runs on October 2 and for that we have already started integrating all the components and laying of tracks. We are sure that we will commence our commercial operations as scheduled in March next year, but the only station that will not become operational immediately will be the one at Shankar Chowk, just next to the national highway, as we got that land only a few months ago," said Sanjiv Rai, managing director, Rapid Metro Rail Gurgaon.He added, "the existing Metro users will not face any sort of problem as we along with DMRC have put in place a clearing house system whereby the revenue of the networks will get segregated automatically. The commuters do not have to purchase a separate ticket to use our network."

The authorities claim that the network will be used by at least one lakh commuters in the first year itself. The construction of the second phase of the project will be begin in March, in which the network will be extended towards Sectors 55-56 and Udyog Vihar.

  Indian Railways News  / Ambedkar statue to delay Metro work by 4 months

The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has decided to continue the underground Metro station in front of  Vidhana Soudha as the state government is delaying a decision on its request to remove a statue of B R Ambedkar from there.Dalit organisations have strongly opposed the  removal of the statue and this has led the government to delay the decision on it.The cost of such a delay has not been computed yet. However, N Sivasailam, managing director, BMRCL, said that there would definitely be extra costs involved since the procedure and the method of work were now different from what was planned before.The cost for the entire phase 1 is estimated to be Rs 11,609 crore.Earlier, the Department of Civil Engineering of IIT Madras had submitted a report stating that the statue need not be moved and had recommended various alternative methods in which work could be carried out.However, a decision even on shifting the statue temporarily has not yet been taken and the BMRCL, tired of waiting, has decided to do the best it can in such a situation.According to sources in BMRCL, it has been decided to cover the statue with metal sheets for protection and carry on with the drilling work which will go under the Vidhana Soudha. The tunnel boring machine Helen has already reached the MS Building and the work is expected to continue.

“We have been extra careful with the section. We will be taking precautions like covering the statue with protective sheets in order to ensure that no damage is done,” an employee said.

Sivasailam said that the work on the section is being handled very slowly and carefully. He added that the non-removal of the statue would lead to a delay of four months.