BANGALORE: In a bid to develop the State's railway infrastructure, Karnataka has appealed to the Railway Ministry to sanction five new railway lines, including one from Bangalore to Chamarajanagar via Kanakapura.

The other new lines proposed by the State are Hubli-Ankola, Shahabad-Bagalkot-Kuduchi, Talaguppa-Honnavar and Kadur-Chikmagalur.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Thursday, Minister for Infrastructure and Tourism B. Sriramulu said Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy took up the issue with the Centre during the recent meeting of the National Development Council in Delhi.

As the Bangalore-Chamarajanagar line would have to pass through forest areas, the State would have to seek environmental clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, Mr. Sriramulu said.

The Government had released Rs. 25 crore as its share for the Kottur-Harihar broad-gauge line. With this, the Government had so far released Rs. 35 crore for the project.

Funds for bridges

It had also released Rs. 15 crore for the construction of 13 road over-bridges and five road under-bridges, Mr. Sriramulu said.

Principal Secretary for Infrastructure Development V.P. Baligar, who was present at the press conference, said the ongoing work on doubling the Bangalore-Ramanagaram railway track would be completed by March 2007.

The Centre had responded positively to the request by the State Government to extend the track doubling work till Mysore. But whether it had been approved would be known only when the next Railway Budget was announced, he said.

The doubling of the track between Ramanagaram and Mysore was estimated to cost around Rs. 287 crore. As per the earlier understanding, the State Government and the Railway Ministry were supposed to share the cost in the ratio of 2:1. But, as the Railway Ministry's profit had gone up from Rs. 2,000 crore at the time of the understanding to over Rs. 15,000 crore now, the State had requested the Railways to share the cost equally, Mr. Baligar said.

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