Railway overpass at Baikampady is weak'

Mangalore, February 18: A team of officials from Southern Railway said on Thursday that the overpass across national highway 17 at Baikampady was weak and posed danger to its users.

At a meeting here, they refused to take up the responsibility of maintaining the overpass stating that it was neither constructed by Southern Railway nor owned by it.

However, S.K. Raina, Divisional Railway Manager of Palghat Division, said that Southern Railway could provide its expertise to those maintaining it.

At one point, Mr. Raina said: “Why should we maintain the overpass which is weak?'' The meeting was convened by Nalin Kumar Kateel, MP, and Ganesh Karnik, MLC and member of the State's Joint Legislature Committee on Railways, to resolve issues involving the railway network in Mangalore. The meeting decided that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) should maintain the overpass by taking technical help from Southern Railway.

P.N. Gawasane, Project Director, NHAI, Mangalore, said that NHAI could maintain the overpass provided NMPT gave records related to it. M.R. Hedaoo, Chief Engineer, New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT), said that the overpass was built by NMPT 30 years ago on public demand. But NMPT did not have drawing and other records pertaining to the overpass. Mr. Gawasane said NHAI had submitted documents to Southern Railway for constructing an overpass at Baikampady, parallel to the existing one. He sought early approval for it. Unless the new overpass was built, the existing one could not be demolished.

The meeting could not resolve other issues as senior officials from South Western Railway and Konkan Railway did not attend it.

Mr. Raina told Mr. Kateel said that Southern Railway would include some projects in the Mangalore region for consideration for sanctioning in the 2012-13 railway budget.

Mr. Kateel told presspersons that another meeting would be held here on February 26. A joint inspection of places having railway issues would be done on that day.

He said that he would convene a meeting once in every three months to resolve railway-related issues in Dakshina Kannada. Railway officials from Konkan Railway, Southern Railway and South Western Railway would be invited to it, he said.

Mr. Raina said that Southern Railway would double the track between Kankanady Junction and Thokur at an estimated cost of Rs. 150 crore. The total length of the line was 22 km. To a question, he said that he could not say when it would be completed as technical investigation of some stretches had to be completed. Work up to four km near Panambur on the stretch had begun, he said.

Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav and Commissioner of Mangalore City Corporation K.N. Vijayaprakash were present.