Southern Railway has made progress on its Rs 702-crore project involving gauge conversion of 357 km railway line on the Quilon-Tirunelveli-Tiruchendur and Tenkasi-Virudhunagar routes in Tamil Nadu. Work on the longest stretch of 72 km between Tenkasi and Tirunelveli is expected to start soon with a contract recently placed on a consortium of Mumbai-based Atlanta Ltd and Orissa-headquartered ARSS Infrastructure Projects Ltd.
Speaking to Projectmonitor, a senior official of Southern Railways (Construction Division) said that only the 49-km section between Punalur and Sengottai now remained to be taken up. The cost estimate of Rs 347 crore was recently approved, he said. Since the stretch has many tunnels en route, construction work could be challenging. Although the final location survey has been completed, work could begin only after "some decisions" on project implementation were taken, he added without elaboration.
The 357-km project was sanctioned in March 1998 at an estimated cost of Rs 280 crore that has now moved up to Rs 702 crore. For reasons ranging from topographical difficulties, delays in land acquisition and tardiness on part of contractors, the project has seen some time overrun. Discussing the recent progress, the official said that the 61-km stretch between Tirunelveli and Tiruchendur has been completed, albeit with a delay of nearly two years, and so has the 8-km Sengottai-Tenkasi section that involved laying of mixed-gauge track (see table).
The 45-km Quilon-Punalur line has been affected by land acquisition problems, he said. The project was originally scheduled for completion by March 2007, but it has not been able to meet even its revised completion date of March 2008. The Tamil Nadu state government has been approached to resolve land-related issues, it is learnt.
The overall project saw its first segment completed when the 52-km Virudhunagar-Rajapalayam line was opened to traffic in June 2003. Following the commissioning of the onward Rajapalayam-Tenkasi link in September 2004, the entire 121-km Virudhunagar-Tenkasi line became operational. The overall project falls under the Madurai division, one of the five such of the Chennai-headquartered Southern Railways.