Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Minister announces train to Jaipur

Staff Reporter

`Bridges will be open by May'

A FLYING START: Union Minister of State for Railways R. Velu (third from right) switching on the green signal at Coimbatore Railway Junction on Sunday to inaugurate the extended train service between Coimbatore and Chennai Egmore. Looking on are th e Coimbatore West MLA S. Maheswari (extreme left); Coimbatore East MLA V.K. Lakshmanan (second from left); Chief Passenger Transportation Manager S. Anantharaman (second right) and Additional Divisional Railway Manager - Palakkad Division M. Sivana ndam (extreme right). - Photo: S. Siva Saravanan

COIMBATORE: Union Minister of State for Railways R. Velu announced on Sunday that a direct weekly train would be introduced shortly between Coimbatore and Jaipur via Chennai.

He was talking to the media after flagging off the extended service of the train between Coimbatore and Chennai Egmore via Erode, Karur, Tiruchi and Villupuram. So far, the train was running up to Erode. It would run up to Coimbatore from Sunday.

Work completion

On the delay in completing Railways' share of work in constructing rail over bridges (RoBs) at Valankulam near Ukkadam and at Ondipudur across Tiruchi Road, the Minister said the work on four RoBs - two at Coimbatore and one each at Omalur and Karur - were on in full swing.

The two bridges at Coimbatore would be thrown open to traffic by May next. The long-pending line doubling between Coimbatore and Irugur would be completed before 2006-07 fiscal.

On the need for widening the bridge across the railway line on Avanashi Road near Hope College - a major traffic bottleneck - the Minister said it would be taken up as part of the Coimbatore - Irugur line doubling work.

Railways was willing to bear the cost for constructing a bridge with two lanes, but the State Government had asked for a six-lane bridge.

When the Railways wrote back to the State Government asking whether it was ready to bear the cost of the remaining four lanes, there had been no reply for the last eight months.

Countering criticisms that Union Ministers hailing from Tamil Nadu had done very little for the State, Mr. Velu said that during their tenure efforts had been on to have all the 1,800 km of meter gauge lines in the State converted into broad gauge.

Of the total 980 km of meter gauge lines taken up for conversion, 325 were in the State.

Separate division

In the railway budget, Tamil Nadu walked away with a lion's share of Rs. 529 crores, considered the highest when compared to the allocation for other States. It was 40 per cent more than the previous year's allocation.

On a separate railway division for the State, the Minister said a proposal for setting up a division at Salem was under examination, he said.

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