Karnataka decides to stop waiting for Centre’s train

“The Karnataka Railway Transport Development Corporation” has not been conceived as an alternative to the Indian Railways but as one which will complement its efforts in creating railway infrastructure in the State. In fact, the State government has been prudent enough to make the Railway Ministry an equity partner as well.

Apart from the State government and the Railway Ministry, the other two partners are HUDCO and IDFC. All of them will pool in Rs 15 crore each as equity and the plan is to borrow Rs 400 crore to Rs 500 crore from financial institutions initially.

All the four partners will begin talks from Monday to sort out the nitty-gritties of the State’s “unique initiative,” as Krishna described it after a meeting with Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee this afternoon. He clarified that the corporation would not run trains but only lay the lines by involving private parties.

Karnataka does not have an extensive railway network as compared to neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh though three Railway ministers — C.M. Poonacha, K. Hanumanthaiah and C.K. Jaffer Sharief — hailed from the State. And with demands for increased allocations to different States going up each year and partisan politics creeping in as never before, Karnataka feels that meagre resources are slowing down its rail projects.

“If there is an annual allocation of Rs one crore for a project worth several crores, it will take years for it to be completed. Hence we decided that we had to do something on our own to speed up development of projects,” a top State government official told The Indian Express.

Among the projects on Karnataka’s immediate priority are the doubling of the electrified Bangalore-Mysore line, gauge conversion of the Hassan-Mangalore line and linking Hubli in north Karnataka with Ankola on the west coast.

The last project is especially important for the State as it opens up the hinterland surrounding the Bellary-Hospet steel belt and links it up with the coast. The government is also planning a new port at Tadri near Ankola within the next three years with private sector participation on a build-operate-share-transfer basis. While the estimated cost of the project is Rs 992 crore, a budgetary provision of only Rs 6 crore was made for the year 2000-2001. According to a State government note, “This is too meagre and at this rate this project cannot be completed.”

Similarly, for the doubling and electrification of a 12.45-km patch on the 138-km Bangalore-Mysore section whose estimated cost is Rs 23.83 crore, an absurd outlay of Rs 1 lakh was made for the years 1998-99 and 1999-2000!