Karna govt, Railways sort out issues over Bengaluru suburban

Decks were cleared Friday for the implementation of the two-decades old suburban railway project for the city with contentious issues being sorted out at a meeting jointly chaired by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy.

Today the Railway minister took all decisions... He sorted out all the issues, Kumaraswamy told reporters after the meeting, attended by officials of the two sides.

Goyal described it as a "world class project" and said all thee issues have been resolved.

He said the Centre changed its suburban railway policy amending the state and the central contribution from 80:20 to 50:50 ration.

The about Rs 17,000 crore and 160-km long project which seeks to connect the city with its suburbs has been approved by the state government recently.

In December last year, Goyal had pushed for expediting the project when a delegation led by JDS supremo and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy met him in New Delhi to discuss the project.

The project in pipeline for two decades was announced in the union budget for 2018-19 to cater to the growth of Bengaluru Metropolis subject to mandatory approvals and sanction.

The state government had raised 19 issues, including extension of the project to important satellite towns and economically important clusters, connectivity to airport, cost of railway land on nominal lease basis and development of stations in phases.

Goyal Friday said there will be 12 interchanges and the plan drawn up was of international standard.

"At some point there will be three levels.There will be road, Metro and Railways. It is a world class project we are bringing to a world class city, the railway minister said.

The railways also agreed to give Rs 6,000 crore worth land free of charge for the project.

The land will be given at Re 1 token lease rent, which is outside the suburban policy... So, it is actually free of charge, Goyal added.

Regarding the Kolar Railway coach factory, he said it will be reviewed as the focus was on the optimum usage of the Raebareli Coach factory.

The Raebareli factory was not manufacturing coaches when the government took over in 2014. However, its production capacity was now 711 coaches and the aim was to increase it to 1,420 coaches annually.

He took a veiled dig at Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, who represents Raebareli, saying though coach factory was announced in 2007 during the UPA regime, not a single coach was manufactured till 2014.

"It is constituency of a very senior leader, so the project was set up there. All the machines were lying idle. I dont know what corruption happened there, Goyal said.