JOIN USThe court had on May 23 ordered the ministry to ensure that the Railway Board took a final decision on the extension of the night train to Karwar within the next three months.
Minister of State for Railways K H Muniyappa on Saturday had only this to say: “The Railways is positively considering the High Court directive. We will try to take a decision on this, before the stipulated time frame.”
Muniyappa was in Bangalore to inaugurate a waiting hall at the Cantonment Railway Station, built at a cost of Rs 3.5 lakh.
Level crossings
The minister said the Railways is making efforts to prevent casualties at the level crossings in the country by 2015. Of the 32,500 level crossings, the Railways is ‘effectively’ manning around 15,000 crossings. The remaining will be completed before 2015, and after that there will be no accidents at the level crossings, he hoped.
He said some crucial decisions pertaining to the projects taken up by the South Western Railways in Karnataka, including that of land acquisition, will be taken up during a meeting with the State Government on August 22.
The minister said recruitments to ‘D’ group category were already in the process across the country. He admitted that there was staff shortage. “We need to fill more than one lakh vacancies,” he added.
The Railways has awarded the SWR Bangalore Division Rs 40,000 for carrying out ‘effective works,’ he said.
Remodelled station
The Cantonment Railway Station, which came into existence in 1864, is one of the oldest railway stations of the South Western Railway. The station handles 35 pairs of express and passenger trains every day, catering to approximately 7,500 passengers.
The station records an earning of Rs 2.5 lakh approximately a day. In view of the continuously increasing demand and growth of Bangalore City, a remodelled station was commissioned in the beginning of the year.
According to officials, the SWR has completed remodelling of the station building with ticket counters on platform two; setting up signages and displays in the station, machine-regulated car parking system; provision of new food plaza; replacement of passenger information display system; mechanised cleaning and widening of circulating area.
The SWR is yet to complete creation of a ‘through park to car park’, setting up of an LCD reservation charting system, among other things.