The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Railway Budget: broken promises disappoint train users in Tirupur

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Wednesday, Mar 02, 2011
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Tamil Nadu

Railway Budget: broken promises disappoint train users in Tirupur

R Vimal Kumar

Erode-Palani line may have to wait
Erode-Shengottai service yet to materialise

Tirupur: Continuing neglect of the region and broken promises from the Railway Budgets presented during the last few years have disappointed the train users in Tirupur a lot .

A glance through the announcements from the last few budgets will bring into light how many of them have either taken off or been left unattended after initial allocation of funds. One of the major projects that will be benefitting the region, Erode-Palani new railway route via Dharapuram and Kangeyam in Tirupur district, may have to wait for at least another few more years before becoming a reality as yet again the Ministry did not allocate the requisite Rs. 500 crore estimated for the project.

“This year, just Rs.10 crore has been earmarked towards the project,” Erode-Dharapuram-Palani Railway Extension Citizen's Committee general secretary Lingam Chinnasamy told The Hindu.

Interestingly, the first allocation for the project to the tune of Rs. 2 crore was announced in 2005 and then there were no allocations in the next successive budgets till last year when Rs. 40 crore was earmarked.

Likewise, a new service between Erode and Shengottai announced in the interim budget in 2009, which could be a boon to the Kongu region, was yet to materialise. The overnight express train service between Tirupur and Chennai too did not find any place in this year's budget.

Even the announcement introducing a link express from Coimbatore to Tuticorin was viewed with scepticism. In the 2009 interim budget, the then Union Minister Laloo Prasad had announced the ‘introduction' of this same link express but the service never took off.

“Railways could ensure that the link express operation commences at the earliest as there is only the need to allocate a few more bogies in the already plying Coimbatore-Nagercoil express,” said M. Piramanayagam, member Divisional Rail Users Consultative Committee, Southern Railway (Madurai Division).

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