CCC's Appeal
The Coimbatore Consumer Cause (CCC) has appealed to the Union Minister of State for Railways, R. Velu to take steps to speed up the doubling of the railway line between Coimbatore and Irugur. In a memorandum, the Secretary of CCC, K. Kathirmathiyon, said that railways had taken nearly 12 years for doubling the 16.6 km long railway line between Coimbatore and Irugur. They were being routed through Irugur and Podanur. The single line bottleneck had also resulted in delayed operation of many trains to and from Coimbatore and those being operated via Coimbatore. The railway line doubling work mooted about a decade ago was progressing at a snail’s pace, they said. This delayed operations and diversion of trains from Irugur via Podanur spoke volume about the infrastructure inadequacies that Coimbatore was subjected to despite being the second largest revenue spinner next to Chennai.The single line bottleneck resulted in a number of trains including regular and special trains to skip Coimbatore Junction.
Owing to line capacity constraints, introduction of new trains and operation of trains at timings convenient to passengers have been hampered to a considerable extent. The doubling of track for 16.6 kms between Irugur and Coimbatore North was actually approved and included in the Budget of 1996-97; with an estimated cost of Rs.38.66 cores. However, because of the inordinate delay the project suffered cost escalation and the project costs had to be revised.
In August 2006, the Railways claimed that nearly 75 per cent of the works were completed and assured that the rest would be completed before March 2008. Given the pace of work on the field , the consumer body was not confident that the work would be completed by March 2008. Now the Railway has to complete the bridge works and then provide the additional track, which would definitely take another one year, they said.
It is unfortunate and regretful that the 16.6 km long doubling work could not be completed by the railways even after 12 years, they said. Hence, the consumer body urged the Minister of State for Railways to bestow his personal attention to expedite the pace of work.
