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MANGALORE: After Puttur Railway YatriSangha, The Kanyakumari District Railway User's Association (KKDRUA) has joined the chorus in urging the Union railway minister to carve out a separate railway division for Mangalore under South Western Railway (SWR) headquartered in Hubli.The association wants sections of Konkan railway - Karwar up to Madgaon - included in the Mangalore division.P Edward Jeni, secretary of the association, said that the Mangalore Central station, which is one of the primary revenue earner for the Southern Railway, has got its divisional head quarters in Kerala. "It comes under the Palakkad division of the Southern Railway. The zonal headquarters is located in Chennai. It is quite natural that, however, bigger may be the contribution of Mangalore, revenue wise, due to its administrative control located in other states, Mangalore has been getting a raw deal,'' he said.He alleged that the Palakkad division has been eyeing Mangalore just for its revenue especially from the NMPT ( New Mangalore Port Trust) and also for the Mangalore Junction, which is used as a mere dump yard for the trains hat used to primarily serve the Malabar region of Kerala.
"The number of trains from Mangalore towards Kerala, is a clear indication of the fact that the Palakkad division is hardly interested in linking Mangalore with other interior parts of Karnataka,'' he further said.
As a case in point, he cited the example of Yeshwantpur- Mangalore- Kannur express (via Mysore) that is being operated to help the Malabar region.
After a lot of struggles, a portion of the train, was made to run in the opposite direction from Mangalore to Karwar, the district HQ of Uttara Kannada district, which has been wishing for a direct train connectivity with the state HQ.
A weekly train from Mangalore to Yeshwantpur has been announced to be operated via Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (Kuppam) to Yeshwantpur. Thus, this train will be getting a unique identity in the 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 and maintenance facilities in major railway stations in Malabar like Kozhikkode, Kannur etc.
Jeni pointed out that due to this the route from Mangalore- Hassan is hardly utilized. He added that the reason cited for operating only few passenger trains via Subrahmanya Road, Hassan section, is that the line is used mainly for freight traffic.
"This is not 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," he added.