KOLLAM: Thomas Varghese, General Manager of the Southern Railway, has said that a temporary office of the newly constituted Salem Division will start functioning by August 15.

Talking to presspersons here on Saturday on his arrival for an on-the-spot study of the progress of the gauge conversion work, Mr. Varghese said the jurisdiction of the division was yet to be finalised. The Prime Minister had intervened following a request from the Kerala Government and the MPs from the State and the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala had been asked to talk it out. As such, it would be a policy decision to be announced later.

While Rs.25 crore was needed to make the division full fledged, Rs.20 crore had been earmarked and from that amount an allocation of Rs.3 crore had been made.

As part of improving the railway security measures in Kerala, especially in the wake of increasing bomb threats, a project of Rs.1.5 crore was being implemented. As part of the project, bomb squads and dog squads would be set up at Eranakulam, Thriuvananthapuram and Kozhikode stations.

Now the Southern Railway had bomb squads only at Chennai and Coimbatore stations. As part of the same project, closed circuit televisions would be installed at Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam and Kozhikode stations.

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