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Railway track doubling figures prominently in the Rs 2,000 crore wish-list submitted by the Hubli-headquartered South Western Railway to the Railway Board.
Addressing press persons here on Tuesday, Mr P. Shameer Basha, Deputy General Manager, South Western Railway, said “We have requested the Railway Board to take up track doubling and initiate new projects to facilitate both goods/freight and ease passenger traffic.”
The South Western Railway has sought Rs 1,500 crore for railway track doubling, Rs 250 crore to improve traffic movement, Rs 120 crore for technology upgradation and Rs 10 crore for completing Hubli railway station.
New trains
As for the introduction of new trains, South Western Railway has asked for Yeshwantpur-New Delhi daily train via Guntakal and Guntakal-Hubli daily inter city. This is mainly to facilitate people of Hubli-Dharwad region to connect or to facilitate them to take north and east-bound trains.
Mr Basha said “We have also asked for bifurcation of Haripriya Express.” When bifurcated, it becomes two trains and links Kolhapur-Hyderabad and Kolhapur-Tirupati.”
Hubli-Bangalore
Hubli to Bangalore is a distance of 469 km. The Railway Board had sanctioned doubling of tracks between the two cities few years ago.
“Since the whole project cannot be taken at one time, it has been broken up in phases (stretches) on about 50 to 75 km a year. So far, only Bangalore-Tumkur stretch of 70 km has been completed, two years ago, and in 2009-10, Birur- Arsikere strech of 50 km was undertaken,” said Mr Basha.
“At present, of the Birur-Arsikere section, 22 km is ready and the balance is expected to be ready in two to three months. Now for this coming Budget, we have sought permission to take up Birur- Davangere stretch covering a distance of 50 km,” he added.
“When the doubling of tracks between Hubli-Bangalore is completed, it is expected to cut down travel time from the present seven hours to five hours and it will facilitate Railways to ply more trains on the route,” he further added.
New Projects
The new projects are doubling of railway track between Hubli and Chikjajur, distance is 190 km and cost of the project, Rs 660 crore. Tumkur-Arsikere is a distance of 96 km and project cost is Rs 347 crore. These two projects are mainly to facilitate passenger movement and cut down travel time.
The new projects to facilitate goods/freight movement are Torangall-Ranjitpura, a distance of 25 km while project cost is Rs 146 crore and Hospet-Ramghad, a distance of 30 km while cost of the project is Rs 234 crore.
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