Tracks to the future

Certainly, completing the project, which began in 1989, was a complex task. Engineers building the 760-km broad gauge single-line from Roha in Maharashtra to Mangalore in Karnataka, had to contend with numerous engineering problems, because of the hilly terrain and the laterite soil of the region. That was not all. Environmentalists worried about the effects that the tunneling would have on the drainage of the ancient khazan lands of Goa, lobbied for several years to have the project scrapped. Since the tracks traversed through land and buildings owned by the Church, it also created some disquiet among Goan Catholics. These were delaying factors, but what proved to be particularly formidable was the fact that embankments kept sinking. To overcome the problem, viaducts had to be built. This raised the cost, which was in any case a worrying factor. At one point, the project faced so serious a cash crunch that it had to be suspended for several months. In its first annual report which appeared in 1991, the Corporation put the total cost of the project at Rs 1,043 crore. By the fifth annual report, this figure had been revised at least four times and was in the region of Rs2,484 crore. Not surprisingly, doomsday prophets had a field day. They claimed that the project would never get completed, and Ram Vilas Paswan did not help things by making rash promises of early completion in the first budget that he had presented as railway minister in 1996.

Now that the project has been completed, with the help of public money raised through government bonds, all these uncertainties now appear like a bad dream which can be forgotten. According to the Corporation8217;s estimates, 21,718 million tonnes of goods would have been transported along this line by the year 2010, and an estimated 43,388 million passengers. This should transform a region that has long been denied avenues for development and was hitherto serviced only by zigzagging, badly-constructed roads. But, even as this transformation takes place, the old doubts and fears of ad hoc, unplanned development do not disappear. Already land prices along the railway tracks have begun to soar, with many non-Konkanis having invested there.This could fuel regional tensions. There is also the worry that the natural beauty of this region could be mindlessly destroyed through unmoderated tourism and its natural resources exploited equally ruthlessly. Development in this region must, indeed, be carefully calibrated if the Konkan railway line is to prove a boon and not a bane for people there.