Official sources in Rail Bhavan, the headquarters of the railway ministry, said Karnataka is also likely to get an enhanced allocation of about Rs 1,000 crore for railway projects during the current fiscal compared to previous years, which hovered around Rs 600 crore.
The amount will also include the share invested by the State government, which would be between Rs 200 crore and Rs 300 crore. The new government will give a fillip to neglected projects such as the Chikmagalur-Kadur line and the Munirabad-Mahboobnagar line. More funds may be allocated for the Bidar-Gulbarga new line which, when completed, will reduce the duration of travel between Bangalore and Delhi by two hours.
The doubling of the Bangalore-Mysore line which has been delayed for some time will get more funds. However, though the Bangalore-Mysore trains are crowded, there has been no request for starting new trains between the two high-traffic destinations.
There is also a demand to start a day train from Bangalore to Mangalore. The picturesque route now has only a night train. It is unlikely that new lines such as Hubli-Ankola, Talaguppa-Honnavar or Bangalore-Satyamangalam will get good amount of funds as they have run into forest/environment clearance problems.
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