Railway budget 2012: Karnataka fumes, dismay gathers steam

The railway budget 2012-13 has met with huge disappointment in the state.

“What is in the budget for Karnataka!” said Prakash Mandoth, former member, Zonal Railway Users Consultative Committee, South Railway and South Western Railway. This is a pro-Bengal budget, with Karnataka mostly neglected, he said.

“Most of the demands state have been pending for the last 8-10 years. Even today, we do not have a third terminal at Baiyappanahalli. There is hardly any connectivity to Belgaum, up to Miraj, Bangalore to Chitradurga or Hospet. Trains connecting Bangalore to Ajmer, Jammu, Shirdi, Varanasi and so on are commercially viable routes and even the railway’s commercial department has justified the demand, but we do not have these trains,” he said.

Ashwin Mahesh, an urban land transport expert and CEO, Mapunity, called the budget a total disaster.

“There is no interest in [delivering] actual services to the people, but political interests. It is high time that the planning of the rail lines be handed over to the state governments,” he said.

He added that most of the initiatives proposed by the ministry should have been implemented at least 10 years ago. “Did the minister suddenly wake up to the lack of hygiene in coaches or the lack of safety at level crossings! There is nothing economical or intelligent about the budget,” he added.  

MP Ananth Kumar said even though Karnataka had been giving the maximum return-against-investment ratio to railways for many years, the South Railway and the South Western Railway had always been ignored.

“The long-pending demand for improved connectivity to North India from Bangalore and connectivity to more places within Karnataka has been ignored for a long time now. SWR has the lowest plan allocation compared with other zones even though it is one of the highest net revenue earners,” he said.