North K'taka feels let down

North Karnataka seems to have be ninth time unlucky. D V Sadananda Gowda is the ninth MP from Karnataka to become the Railway Minister, and people of North Karnataka had pinned hopes on him.

They feel let down as the Railway Budget presented on Tuesday had nothing for the people of the region to cheer about. It seems, state BJP president and Dharwad MP Prahlad Joshi failed to score a home run as far as the railway facilities are concerned.

Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda seems to have ignored the fact that Bangalore and Mysore divisions, which he has considered for providing sops are part of the South Western Railway which is headquartered in Hubli.

The wish list of the people of North Karnataka has remained largely unfulfilled.

They had pinned their hopes on Gowda for two reasons. One, he knows the problems of the people of the state as far as railway facilities are concerned and also the genuine requirements of the people.

Two, state BJP president Prahlad Joshi who is an MP from Dharwad, had been pressing for several important facilities for many years. Now that his own party is in power, things were expected to go well. But, it seems Joshi's lobby quotient has not yielded the desired results.

Joshi hails Budget

However, Prahlad Joshi, who had all these years criticised the Railway Budget as disappointing, this time hailed the budget as development-oriented and has not spoken about the demands of the region not being fulfilled.

The main demands of the region included:

Extension of the Hubli-Kurla Express train up to Dadar; new trains between Hubli and Chennai; Hubli and Mangalore; and night express to Bangalore from Hubli. New line works on the Hubli - Dharwad - Kittur - Belgaum, Haveri - Gadag, Gadag - Harapanhalli - Harihar, Harihar - Shimoga, Talaguppa - Honnavar (linking to the Konkan Railway Line) and Davanagere -Tumkur routes.

Hubli - Ankola new broad gauge line is a dream project capable of ushering in an era of economic growth of the region. But none of these have been considered by Gowda.

Former member of Railway consultative committee P G Narsapur said, the budget has been a damp squib for Karnataka. "Our major demands have been ignored and the minister has provided only piece meal. The passenger train between Dharwad and Dandeli was a pending project announced by Kharge." he said.

On the positive side, he appreciated the concerns of the railway minister for modernisation, safety and security of the Railways and passengers.