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Sabari railway line facing hurdles
By A Special Correspondent
Railway Minister Nitish Kumar has admitted that there have been difficulties in finalising the alignment of Angamali-Sabarimala and Kottayam-Erumeli new railway lines in Kerala due to court cases and stiff resistance from the local people.
The state government recently brought it to the Centre's notice that the Estimates Committee (2001-2004) of the Kerala Legislative Assembly had recommended that the proposed new Sabarimala line might be terminated before the forest area, as a railway line running through the forest area could endanger wildlife. The proposed line may, thus, have to be terminated short of the forest area, the minister told the Lok Sabha recently.
Describing the progress of various railway projects in Kerala, Nitish Kumar said, "Out of the total of 307 km of doubling of Shoranur-Mangalore line, 211 km has already been completed and another 30 km is targeted for completion during 2003-2004. It is hoped that the entire doubling would be completed by 2004-2005."
"Doubling of Ernakulam-Kayankulam lines, both via Alleppey and Kottayam lines, has already been taken up and is being sanctioned in phases. Till now, work is in various stages of progress on 50 km length out of the total of 215 km on the two routes. The work of new lines from Angamali to Sabarimala, Kottayam to Erumeli and the coastal line from Tanur to Guruvayoor has also been taken up. Gauge conversion work of Quilon-Tenkasi-Tirunelveli is also in progress. Work of electrification beyond Ernakulam up to Trivandrum (320 route km) is already in progress and is likely to be completed during 2004-2005. The completion of the ongoing projects would add 488 km of broad gauge lines and 285 km of electrified lines," he said, in answer to a question on the progress of railway projects in Kerala.
Further, to remove the terminal bottlenecks, the work of an additional terminal at Kochuveli has already been taken up.
Sabari railway line facing hurdles
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