The Hindu Business Line : ‘Coach factory in Kerala may help Coimbatore units’

Coimbatore, Feb. 26 The railway budget has yet again skirted Coimbatore in terms of introduction of new services or any new night train service connecting this industrial city with either Bangalore, as demanded by the business class, or with the towns in south Tamil Nadu.

However, it has thrown in a few consolations as among the announcements is the extension of the Coimbatore-Kumbakonam Shadhabthi Express up to Myladuthurai which now provides rail-link to the coastal Thanjavur from Coimbatore.

Another heartening announcement that may have a bearing on Coimbatore is the railway’s proposal to set up a coach factory in neighbouring Kerala. This, according to Mr D Balasundaram, President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore, will give opportunity for the engineering units in the region on subcontracting as already a number of Coimbatore-based SME vendors supply to the railways.

By being geographically contiguous to Kerala, location of a railway coach factory anywhere in Kerala would be appreciated by the Coimbatore engineering industries.

Freight connectivity between Coimbatore and the port town of Tuticorin by rail has been a long-pending demand of the trade and industry here which have been seeking expeditious completion of gauge conversion of the existing Coimbatore-Dindigul railway link. “Though the budget has proposed to lay 3500 kms broad gauge line during 2008-09, we are not sure whether that included the Coimbatore-Palani sections too which is important for the trade to have the railway freight route between Coimbatore-Tuticorin to be directly linked”, said the chamber president.

Another crucial railway line improvement being sought by Coimbatore is the doubling of the track between Coimbatore and Irugur and it is not clear whether the budget proposals for 2008-09 have envisaged any plan for this, Mr Balasundaram said adding that the gauge conversion of Coimbatore and Palani link and the doubling of Coimbatore-Irugur would vastly improve the economy of Coimbatore region.

Mr Shree Gopal Maheswari, Secretary of the ICCI, Coimbatore, said the budgetary proposal of the railway to go for large scale IT induction to create additional ticketing windows including mobile ticketing to wipe out long queues for railway reservations within the next two years would be a ‘ambitious’ move and yet a passenger friendly course. So will be its decision to enhance the safety and security measures both inside the train and on the platform, he added.

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