The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Rail line project remains a dream

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Wednesday, Mar 25, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Rail line project remains a dream

Staff Reporter

Kakinada: The proposal for laying a railway line connecting Kakinada and Pithapuram has remained a dream for the people of this historic port city, more so for MP M.M. Pallam Raju who made several futile attempts to get the project grounded. Repeated pleas to Railway Minister Lalu Prasad obviously fell on deaf ears and the MP himself is so vexed with his Cabinet colleague’s indifference that he had commented in the media that only a new Railway Minister might concede the long-pending demand.

MP’s promise

It may be recalled that Mr. Pallam Raju promised to founder president of East Godavari District and Cocanada Town Passengers’ Association S.S. Krishnaji, who sat on an indefinite hunger strike in September 2006, that he would get the project grounded in six months or he himself would join the agitation.

Now that the project appears to be a “Penelope’s web”, Mr. Krishnaji has warned that the agitation will be resumed.

Mr. Krishnaji believed the MP’s assurances and gave up the agitation but the project is yet to take shape even eight years after it was sanctioned in 2001 at an estimated cost of Rs. 62 crore.

The project has a positive rate of return but was not allocated adequate budget. The octogenarian Krishnaji had first proposed Kakinada-Pithapuram railway line in the late 1950s but he remains a distraught man like the MP and passengers as what continued to emerge was mere sweet talk from the Railway officials.

The project is currently estimated to cost in excess of Rs. 100 crores while a meagre grant of Rs.10 crores was made in 2001-02. An additional Rs. 5 crores was reportedly earmarked in 2007 but the Committee on Infrastructure of Planning Commission to which all railway projects costing above Rs. 50 crores have to be compulsorily referred, has not yet given the required financial clearances.

Land requirement

The proposed 22-km railway line needs some 193 acres of land to be acquired by the State government and handed over to the South Central Railway. It was found to be technically feasible and viable long ago but it never made to the priority list of the Railway Board.

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