Title - Railways urged to carve out Mangalore Division

MANGALORE: After Puttur Railway Yatri Sangha, the Kanyakumari District Railway User's Association (KKDRUA) has also joined the chorus urging Union Railway Minister to propose Mangalore railway division under South Western Railway (SWR), headquartered in Hubli.

The association wants sections of Konkan railway like Karwar up to Madgaon included in Mangalore division. P Edward Jeni, Secretary of association said Mangalore central one of the primary revenue earner for Southern Railway has got its divisional head quarters in the neighbouring Kerala state as it comes under Palakkad division of Southern Railway.

The Zonal Headquarters is located at Chennai in yet another neighbouring state of Karnataka. It's quite natural that however bigger may be the contribution of Mangalore, revenue wise, due to its administrative control located in other states, raw deal has been meted out to Mangalore,'' he said.

He alleged that Palakkad division has been eyeing Mangalore just for its revenue especially from the NMPT ( New Mangalore Port Trust) and also the Mangalore Junction, which is used as mere dump yard for the trains which used to primarily serve the Malabar region of Kerala. The number of from Mangalore towards Kerala side is a clear indication of the fact that Palakkad division is hardly interested in linking Mangalore with other interior parts of Karnataka,'' he further alleged.

As a case in point, he cited the example of Yesvantpur - Mangalore - Kannur express (via Mysore) is being operated to help Malabar region to have more train links with Bangalore. After lot of struggle a portion of that train was made to run in the opposite direction from Mangalore to Karwar, the district HQ of Uttara Kannada district which has been languishing for direct train connectivity with the state HQ. Even now one can see a weekly train from Mangalore to Yesvantpur being announced as to be operated via Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (Kuppam) to Yesvantpur.

Thus, this train would be getting a unique identity in Indian railways of originating from the same state (Karnataka) and ending up in the same state (Karnataka) but being operated through three other different states,'' he rued indicating how Palakkad division proposes trains from Mangalore with the sole motive of catering to the Malabar region of Kerala as there are limited facilities like pit line, maintenance facilities in major railway stations in Malabar like Kozhikkode, Kannur etc. Jeni pointed out that due to this route from Mangalore- Hassan is hardly utilized, adding the reason cited for operating few passenger trains via Subrahmanya Road, Hassan section is that line is used mainly for freight traffic. This is not at all an acceptable reason as Mangalore is not at all connected with places in Karnataka like Hubli, the HQ of SWR, Bijapur, Gulbarga, Bidar, Raichur etc.