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Bijapur-Gadag gauge conversion may be delayed

By Our Staff Correspondent

Sleepers have been unloaded in Bijapur and other work sites

BIJAPUR, MAY 26. The gauge conversion work between Bijapur and Gadag is likely to be delayed by one more year following the change of guard at the Centre and the State Government's failure in releasing the matching grant as per its cost-sharing agreement with the Railways.

As per the original plan, the conversion of the 300-km Hutgi (Solapur)-Gadag metre gauge line into broad gauge should have been completed by 1998. While launching the gauge conversion work at Bijapur in 1993, the then Railway Minister, Jaffer Sharief, had announced that he would ensure that the work was completed before the time frame set for the commissioning the project. After his exit, the conversion work was completed only up to Bijapur by that deadline. The cost of the project had to be revised due to poor allocation in successive budgets.

The project was put on the fast track once again when the Bijapur MP and the then Union Minister of State for Textiles, Basanagouda R. Patil Yatnal, was shifted to the Railway Ministry last September. Mr. Yatnal claimed that the project would be completed by March 2005. However, it appears to have lost priority in the changed political scenario.

As per the latest plan, the gauge conversion will be completed up to Bagalkot by March next and up to Gadag by March 2006 if the railways and the State Government released the required funds in time.

The cost of the project, which was Rs. 265 crore till end of last fiscal, has now been revised at Rs. 318 crore. The Chief Engineer, South Western Railway, Mahesh Kumar, told The Hindu over phone from Bangalore that the cumulative expenditure since the commencement of the project was Rs. 190 crore and that it still needed an additional Rs. 128 crore. The State Government had to release its share of Rs. 13 crore on the expenditure incurred by the railways during the last fiscal. However, he said, the department had ensured that the delay in releasing funds by the State Government did not affect the work and that the railways was hopeful that the entire line would be through by the end of March 2006.

According to Deputy Chief Engineer, Saibaba, the work was in full swing and the construction of a major bridge across Don river was nearing completion. All but three of the 72 small bridges between Bijapur and Bagalkot had been completed. The metre gauge line had already been dismantled up to Basavanabagewadi (46 km from Bijapur), and new sleepers and rails for laying of broad gauge line had arrived.

The work between Basavanabagewadi and Bagalkot would also commence shortly and the line would be ready up to Bagalkot well before March 2005, he said.

However, sources said that the chances of the work getting delayed on the 90-km stretch between Bagalkot and Gadag for more than a year were high. It all depends on how far Mr. Yatnal and other MPs would be able to get enough allocations in the railway budgets and how promptly the State released its matching grant.

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