Railway budget disappoints coastal people

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Railway Yahthri Sangha (Puttur) Technical Advisor Anil Hegde said the long pending demand of the region to extend the train service to Karwar has been realised in the budget. However, the demand of the people to run Mangalore-Bangalore day train daily has not been realised even in this budget. Though Howrah-Mangalore train has been announced, the train will pass through Palghat and not via Londa. “If it was to ply via Londa, it would have benefitted the people of the region,” he said.

Meanwhile, the proposal to extend Mangalore-Bangalore train to Subramanya too did not get any recognition in the budget. “We had demanded to upgrade Subramanya road station as Subramanya terminal station, so that any train can be started from there. However, the proposal has not been included in the budget.”

KCCI President G G Mohandas Prabhu said that the proposal on starting a train service between Mangalore-Howrah has been realised. “However, we had asked the minister to run the train via North Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh-Orissa and Howrah. The sanctioned train will run via Palghat, which means Mangaloreans will have to travel 24 hours more to reach Howrah. We had also asked the Minister to start an additional night train to Bangalore, which has not been considered in the budget.”

Udupi Railway Yatri Sangha President R L Dias said that the people in coastal areas have been neglected in the railway budget except one demand of extending Bangalore-Mangalore (Yeshwanthapura-Arsikere) train to Karwar. Our interests have not been taken into consideration. Extension of Bangalore-Mangalore train is the outcome of our struggle for the last two years.

However, the request for the stoppage of Dehradun train, Amritsar train and Poona-Ernakulam Express train at Udupi has not been considered,” he rued.

Udupi MLA Raghupathy Bhat said the Central government should be applauded for considering the demand of extending Bangalore-Mangalore train to Karwar. “People of Udupi will have easy access to Bangalore. This also helps for the development of this part of the region. If the budget had failed to react to our demand, we would have started rail roko the very next day. It is a wonderful budget,” he added.