Nelamangala rail line will be open by March

The union minister of state for Railways, KH Muniyappa, has promised to open the Nelamangala- Bangalore Rail in the next three months. He said that the delay was due to technical problems and these will be sorted out soon.

“There are some technical difficulties, because of which there has been a delay. This will be fixed in the next three months and the line will be commissioned,” he said. Although the line was completed almost a year ago and was even scheduled to be inaugurated in June last year, there have been no developments.

A few other projects, too, have been sanctioned. “The survey on the high-speed rail link from Bangalore to Chennai is going on. There is a proposal to touch Mysore, and this proposal is with the government,” he said, adding that the final location survey on the Whitefield-Kolar (52 km) project has also been sanctioned and is scheduled to be completed this fiscal.

The surveys for the Tumkur-Davangere project (200 km) and the Harihar-Shimoga project (80 km) will also be completed during 2012-13.

He added that the surveys for the Bangalore to Nangli (120 km) project, Yelahanka to Penukonda doubling (170km) are complete and the report will be submitted soon.

Of the 3,000 km of the proposed rail construction in the state, only 800 km have been completed in the last financial year, according Muniyappa.

“The construction for 2993 km costs Rs17,590 crore for the 31 projects, 15 of which are being done on a 50:50 cost-sharing basis with the state government,” he said.

Of the 31 projects, 11 are new line projects constructed at a cost of Rs11,750 crore. While two of these— the Hubli Ankola and the Bangalore Sathyamangalam projects— are being held up on account of environmental issues, during the last six years, only about 88 km of the 1600 km of new line projects have been completed. One of the reasons for delays in the project, he said, was land acquisition.

“The present rate of completion of projects is about 150 km per year. To complete on going projects in the coming four to five years, we have to speed up work to complete at least 500 km a year,” he said.