CM seeks new trains for State

Requests commuter rail service for Blore to meet demand

Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda has written to the Centre, ahead of the Railway budget, seeking a host of new trains, extensions and sanction of new projects.

In a letter to the Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi and the Minister of State for Railways K H Muniyappa, Sadananda Gowda, among other things, has sought a daily night train from Hospet to Mysore, as both cities are major tourist destinations and presently, one has to pass through Bangalore to reach either of the places.

Shorter route
“There is a relatively shorter route of 525 km via Bellary, Chitradurga, Hassan. A new broad-gauge line of 190 km, which was laid between Bellary-Rayadurga, Chitradurga-Chikjajur, is underutilised. Only two passenger trains have been running on this route for the last 10 years,” the letter says.
The State has also requested for commuter rail service for the City.

Claiming that the traffic data fully justified the need of commuter rail, the State has suggested either laying of new lines or using the existing ones if the Railways could spare corridors available on a long-term basis.

This would help people disperse to outer areas of the City like Anekal, Malur, Devanahalli, Tumkur, Nelamangala and Bidadi.

Land for factory
The letter also stated that 2,293 acres of 2,493 acres of land had already been handed over to the Railways. The remaining 200 acres will be handed over by February 15.

Land measuring up to 1,000 acres has also been identified in Eldur and Edarur of Kolar district for setting up of an Integrated Rail Coach factory.

The three projects announced during the visit of the Railway Minister, namely the Gadag-Wadi, Srinivasapura-Madanapalle and Bangalore-Kengeri-Kanakapura-Chamarajanagara Railway lines, which were sanctioned and surveyed earlier, should be taken up immediately by the Ministry of Railways, the letter urged.

Extensions have been sought for the Bangalore-Hubli Janshatabdi line and the Solapur-Bagalkot line up to Dharwad, the Vasco-Kulam line upto Hubli, Hubli-Bijapur line up to Solapur, the Hubli-Miraj Passenger line up to Dadar and the CST-Bijapur line upto Gadag.

Routes sought for State
* Push-pull train from Hassan and Mangalore to Subramanya
* New train from Mangalore to Bijapur
* Mangalore-Chennai
* Dharwad-Madurai via Bangalore and Chennai
* Mumbai-Mangalore-Bangalore
* Dharwad-Kanyakumari via Bangalore and Coimbatore
* Ernakulam-Jaipur via Mangalore (twice a week)
* Delhi-Mangalore via Mathura, Vadodara, Madgaon
* Bangalore-Gulbarga fast daily Express
* Bangalore-Amritsar