Kerala - Kochi   

Railways planning six high-speed corridors

KOCHI: The Indian Railways is probing the possibility of having a high-speed rail corridor connecting Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Kochi, K.C. Jena, Chairman of the Railway Board, said here on Sunday.

He told presspersons that six high-speed passenger corridors had been planned as a public-private partnership. Interested State governments and the Railways would pool equal funds for the same. A global tender would soon be called to appoint a consultant.

Mr. Jena, on a Kerala tour to oversee railway development works, said the State had been allotted Rs. 349 crore for the coming financial year, as compared to Rs. 283 crore given the previous year. The aim was to develop infrastructure.

He said the railway link to the Vallarpadam international container transhipment project site would be completed by 2009.

On the proposed Angamali-Sabarimala rail link, he said the Railways was keen on carrying out the work, which, at present, had been held up by problems in land acquisition.

Mr. Jena said the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation and the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation had joined hands to begin a few package tours connecting various tourism destinations in the State. The possibility of introducing a railway package connecting Goa and Kerala was being planned.

On the inordinate delay in completing work on railway overbridges in the State, Rakesh Chopra, General Manager of Southern Railway, said that many contractors were unwilling to carry out the works.

This was in addition to problems such as the steep increase in prices of cement and steel and those related to land acquisition. Pending works would be revived soon. Discussions were held with the Managing Director of Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala.

He said the possibility of introducing suburban trains connecting neighbouring districts in Kerala was being studied. “Inadequate lane capacity is a major constraint. We are giving emphasis to speed up the ongoing rail-doubling work in the State,” he said.

Earlier, M.S. Jayanth, Chief Commercial Manager of the Railways, made a presentation on the augmentation of passenger and other amenities in railway stations in Kerala.

Abraham Jacob, Chief Operations Manager, and R. Ramanathan, Chief Administrative Officer (Constructions), were present.

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