Suburban rail gets biggest push as Railways allots land

The suburban rail got its biggest push on Friday as the railways agreed to provide land worth Rs 6,700 crore virtually free of cost for the project and the state government agreed to review its conditions, paving the way for approval of the Rs 23,000 crore project.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal set the tone for the new-found bonhomie as he shifted his press conference from the Divisional Railway Manager’s office to the Chief Minister’s conference room at Krishna.

The Railways had earlier rejected most of the state government’s 19 conditions for approval of the draft feasibility report as unacceptable. Officials had cited the conditions as the reason for the interim Union budget putting the project on the backburner by allocating a mere Rs 10 crore.

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​“The railway minister had called a press conference to speak about railway work taken up in the last year. However, he fixed this meeting abruptly in the morning, to show his commitment for the suburban rail,” Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said.

“Today, we have sorted out all the issues. The state and the Centre have come to a final agreement. I have appealed to Piyush Goyal to convey my request to the prime minister and bring him for the foundation stone laying ceremony,” he said.

Since 2016, Piyush Goyal has taken a personal interest and had held several rounds of meetings with the state government. He also directed the preparation of DPR for expediting the process of clearing various proposals. After 20 years, the project has got such a boost, he said.