Coffee planters seek rail link to Madikeri in forthcoming budget

Plantation regions of Karnataka have a very poor connection to the railway network of India

Coffee planters of Kodagu have appealed to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Railway Minister D V Sadananda Gowda to sanction a railway line from Mysore to Madikeri via Kushalnagar in the forthcoming railway budget. The project has been pending for many decades and a survey was also done to ascertain the feasibility of this line a few years ago.

In a pre-budget memorandum to the railway minister, the Karnataka Planters’ Association (KPA) has also demanded for considering a line from Chikmagalur to Madikeri via Hassan and Somwarpet thus connecting all the plantation districts of the state. Incidentally, Kodagu is the only district, which does not have railway connectivity.

“We request that goods trains be routed through this new line as well as through the existing railway line passing through Kadur, Chikmagalur and Shimoga. though the passenger services have started since more than six months to Chikmagalur, goods services are yet to start,” said D Govindappa Jayaram, Chairman, KPA.

He said the passenger and goods trains be initiated after the new line is laid from and to Kodagu district. This will help development of tourism to the Western Ghats region and transportation of commodities to and from Kodagu as also greater employment opportunities to the rural people apart from increasing economic activities in the region, he said.

Though the plantation regions of Karnataka have a need for transport of bulk goods such as fertilisers, agricultural and plantation produce, it has a very poor connection to the railway network of India, he said.

Govindappa said the conditions of roads to the plantation districts are  very poor with the exception of the Bangalore-Mangalore National Highway. The KPA has also urged the prime minister to consider having a similar national highway from Hassan to Kodagu district and to Chikmagalur district to help improve the connectivity to the plantation regions.

The three plantation districts like Kodagu, Chikmagalur and Hassan contribute 70 per cent of India’s coffee production. During 2013-14, these districts together have accounted for 217,700 tonnes of coffee, about 69.9 per cent of the total coffee produced in India.