The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Insufficient fund allotment may delay BG projects in State

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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Insufficient fund allotment may delay BG projects in State

S. Vydhianathan

Southern Railway to write to Railway Board

CHENNAI: Insufficient allotment of funds for the current financial year in the recent railway budget may delay the completion of various on-going conversion projects in the State. Southern Railway had demanded Rs.611 crore for gauge conversion projects alone but it received Rs.245 crore for the current financial year.

Already the zone had spent Rs.135 crore out of Rs.234.8 crore allotted in the interim budget submitted in February. Available funds for the entire year will be Rs.10 crore only. As the zone may not have sufficient funds to spend for gauge conversion projects, Southern Railway is to write to the Railway Board requesting allotment of more funds for these projects.

According to a senior official of the zone, the Vellore-Villupuram gauge conversion is one of the targeted projects as per the railway budget. But it received Rs.50 crore as against the requirement of Rs.105 crore. Already track linking work is over. Welding, packing of ballasts and station building works were to be completed.

For the Manamadurai–Virudhunagar gauge conversion, the zone asked for Rs.60 crore, but the allotment was only Rs.21 crore. Another major project which did not receive sufficient funds was Dindigul-Pollachi-Palakkadu. Traffic on the section had been closed and contractors had been fixed for the entire stretch. As against the requirement of Rs.175 crore for the current year, the Ministry sanctioned Rs.31 crore.

The zone planned to complete the conversion of Mayiladuthurai–Tiruvarur line by December 2010 to provide direct BG link from Chennai to Nagore. For this, the zone sought Rs.60 crore but the allotment was only Rs.15 crore.

New lines

For new lines as against the demand of Rs.250 crore, the allotment was Rs.161.73 crore.

The official said that this year the zone wanted to complete the Salem-Namakkal stretch of Salem–Karur new line project. For this, the zone required at least Rs.150 crore. But the allotment was Rs.36 crore. The zone had to divert funds from other new line projects to complete Salem-Namakkal stretch.

For doubling projects, the Ministry had sanctioned Rs.239 crore in the interim budget, which was reduced to Rs.217 crore in the main budget. The zone would demand additional funds for completing Chengalpattu–Villupuram doubling projects.

The official said as on date about 1,000 km of metre gauge lines were to be converted and the required fund would be about Rs.2700 crore. The annual allotment should be of the order of Rs.500 crore if the projects had to be completed in five years.

But with the current allotment it would take another 10 years for completing the projects, the official added.

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