Railway Lines On Ppp Model Mooted

BANGALORE: Union Minister of State for Railways KH Muniyappa on Tuesday said that the state government was preparing a draft for getting 20 new railway projects, on private public partnership (PPP) basis, sanctioned for the state. The proposal will be placed before Parliament after it is approved by the Railway Board.

Muniyappa told reporters, “For the first time in the history of the Indian Railways we are mooting laying of new lines on a PPP mode. At present, there are 63,000 kilometres of railway lines in the country and there is a demand for laying 50,000 kilomet res of new lines. We are not able to meet this demand due to financial constraints.

If the PPP mode is approved, it will help us meet the demands at the earliest”.

Muniyappa also said that the railways had decided to convert 1,000 manned level crossings into unmanned level crossings in the country by constructing railway overbridges or underbridges.

The railways is constructing 58 such bridges in the state and is awaiting BBMP’s sanction for nine more bridges.

Union Minister for Railways Mamata Banerjee will flag off the state’s first Duronto train from Howrah to Yeshwantpur on Wednesday.

The train will make its maiden trip on the return direction from Yeshwantpur on January 3, Muniyappa announced.

The Railways will be extending Mysore-Tirupati fast passenger upto Chamarajanagar in the first week of January and the Mumbai-Karwar Express upto Mangalore by the end of January.

It will also introduce Bangalore- Kochuveli superfast express and Lucknow-Rae Bareli-Bangalore Express by February.

With that, all the trains announced for the state would be introduced.

Railways will also be undertaking 57 kilometres of gauge conversion work, 54 kilometre of doubling work and will lay 65 kilometres of new lines, he said.

Muniyappa said that the environment department was yet to give clearance for the Hubli-Ankola and Bangalore-Satyamangalam lines. The high-level committee headed by ADG Gangopadhyaya had surveyed the realigned Hubli-Ankola line and a decision would be taken after it submitted the report.

“I have requested the chief minister to hold a meeting to find solutions to pending issues and remove bottlenecks for the projects,” he added.


Source: expressbuzz.com