Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Doubling of railway line shelved

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Railway Board has shelved the doubling of the highly congested Thiruvananthapuram-Nagercoil-Kanyakumary section, citing the ‘financial unviable nature and low operational priority' of the second line.

The information was obtained under the Right to Information Act 2005 by one N.K. Vallikunnu hailing from Nagercoil.

The doubling of the stretch had been a long-pending demand of the State and railway users who travel from Nagercoil and Kanyakumary districts of Tamil Nadu to Thiruvananthapuram daily to attend office or schools and colleges.

Survey report

In 2005, the Railway Board had sanctioned a ‘Reconnaissance Engineering cum Traffic Survey' for the doubling of the 86.56-km track extending from Thiruvananthapuram Central to Kanyakumary. The survey report was submitted to the Railway Board on July 31, 2009.

The Board, which examined the report in detail, observed that the cost of doubling would come to about Rs.526.66 crore with a rate of return of 0.77 per cent. The Director, Works, Railway Board, had communicated the proposal to shelve the project to the Chief Administrative Officer, Construction, Southern Railway, Chennai.

Officials in Thiruvananthapuram railway division and in the construction wing are in the dark about the Board's decision taken in November 2009 and communicated to the Chief Administrative Officer in December that year.

Railway officials said the doubling of the stretch was inevitable as several long-distance trains through Kerala were being extended to Nagercoil and Kanyakumary because of line saturation at Thiruvananthapuram Central.

Vizhinjam project

The officials are of the view that the decision to shelve the doubling had been taken without taking into account the traffic in the stretch, especially the freight traffic, once the Vizhinjam international container transhipment terminal is commissioned. “Though the Vizhinjam project is still on paper, it is expected to materialise in five years. The doubling of the stretch is a must once the freight traffic commences to the port,” they say.

The proposed rail link to the Vizhinjam project is from Balaramapuram which falls along the Thiruvananthapuram-Kanyakumary route. Already, the State has announced Rs.125 crore for Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, a public sector unit under the Ministry of Railways, for constructing the rail link. The rail link to Vizhinjam cannot be established without the doubling of the track.

The decision has come at a time when the railways are gearing up to complete the electrification of the single line from Thiruvananthapuram Central to Kanyakumary to operate mail and express trains. It is pointed out that electrification of the line without doubling of the tracks will be futile.

Now, 20-30 trains move through the single-line Thiruvananthapuram-Nagercoil-Kanyakumary stretch daily. Of them, four are goods trains, six pairs are Express trains and six pairs, passenger trains.

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