The Hindu Business Line : `Merger with Rlys an option for KRC'

"Till the merger takes place, the Indian Railways will perhaps continue to cough up at the rate of Rs 300 crore every year to take care of the interest burden on the nearly Rs 2,700 crore of loans raised by KRC," said Mr R.K. Singh, Chairman of the Railway Board, here on Wednesday.

As Mr Singh pointed out, KRC was a separate entity with several State Governments, among others, having participated in its equity. "We are in touch with the shareholders as to how to clear the debt and what should be done," he said, adding, "It is a very complex issue."

Referring to the safety issue on KRC, he said Rs 36 crore had been spent in past few months to strengthen as many as 76 vulnerable and fragile cutting sections. "Ever since the Goa Express was involved in an accident on the route less than a year ago, the boulder networking has been done to prevent recurrence of any such disaster," he said pointing out that Wednesday's accident took place in a shallow cutting area, i.e., cutting with less than 10-metre depth. "We had no idea that even shallow cuttings could be so vulnerable," Mr Singh observed.

The Railway Board Chairman said that he was accompanying the Railway Minister, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, to the accident site to assess the extent of damage that had been caused by the accident and to decide what more should be done to ensure greater safety. Safety and modernisation would receive top priority and funds would be no constraint. In the past two and half years, work on 9,000 km out of the 16,500 km of tracks identified for renewal in the Indian Railways had been completed and 1,300 bridges out of the total identified 2,700 had been strengthened.

The Railway Minister, who arrived here earlier in the day to participate in the Annual Railway Awards Function, cancelled the programme and rushed to the site of the accident.

Before leaving, he told newspersons that he would like to compliment Ms Sonia Gandhi for not hiking the price of kerosene. He, however, declined to say anything on the additional burden the Railways would be required to shoulder because of the hike in the price of diesel and petrol. "I would not comment on it as it would have bearing on the Railway Budget to be presented shortly," he observed. The Budget would try to protect the interests of the ordinary people as far as possible," he added.

Mr Yadav reiterated there would be no compromise on the issues relating to safety and modernisation of the railways and in case of human failure the persons found guilty in today's rail accident would not be spared. He announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the next of kin of each of those died in the accident and a maximum of Rs 15,000 for each injured.

In reply to a question he observed that the file on the Godhra accident had been opened and the truth would be revealed soon. "The whole world must know what actually happened in Godhra fire," he observed.

The Railway Board Chairman said the freight target for the current fiscal was set at 570 million tonnes in the interim budget as compared to the 557 million tonnes handled in 2003-04. "Let us wait for the full budget for the final figures", he added.

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`Merger with Rlys an option for KRC'