The Centre is not on the same page with the State government on the Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod SilverLine semi-high-speed rail corridor project since its standard gauge track will hamper interoperability with trains that operate on the country’s 70,000-km broad gauge network, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said.
Speaking to The Hindu here on Tuesday, he said the 530-km SilverLine corridor would thus remain as an isolated one, cut off from rest of the rail network. Terming its per-km cost of ₹120 crore submitted by State government as an underestimation, he said it would realistically cost between ₹200 and ₹250 crore.
“This will result in the project cost escalating, once work begins at a lesser estimate. We feel hurt when it is politicised, since it is a technical subject and must be handled by people having deep domain knowledge.”
“There is no discrimination against Kerala and it must be viewed objectively. It is even now possible to create a high-speed railway backbone for Kerala by upgrading existing resources,” Mr. Vaishnaw said adding that the State government could submit a fresh DPR for SilverLine.
He drove a contrast between an average of ₹372 crore allotted to the State’s railway development each year from 2009 to 2014 and ₹2,033 crore allotted in 2023-’24.
The Minister said Kerala would soon get a second Vande Bharat train for the Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram corridor. This would be followed by a Vande Bharat train in the Thiruvananthapuram-Bengaluru sector, where demand is high, as soon as the sleeper format of the train was ready by the year end or early next year.
Likewise, the high-capacity metro-format of Vande Bharat trains, designed to run up to a distance of 200 km, could operate shuttle services between Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi at a later stage, covering the distance in one-and-a-half hours, he said adding that States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were yet to get Vande Bharat train.
Referring to the delay in executing the Sabari Rail project, Mr. Vaishnaw said the 111-km Angamaly-Erumely alignment was long and through difficult terrain. An alternative could be the 60-km Chengannur-Pampa alignment. This would in turn also lessen the further distance up to Sabarimala (from the terminal station) from 40 km to four km. A final decision would be taken after consulting the State government.
Train speed
On works to increase speed of trains in Kerala to hew out a high-capacity high-speed rail corridor, he said km by km mapping of curves was under way to assess aspects such as density of habitation and availability of land (needed to straighten curves). Elevated tracks could be built wherever needed and to avoid steep curves. A study in this regard was expected to get over in another six months.
In addition, the signal system too would be upgraded, following which the capacity of tracks would improve by 40% in another four years. The ₹1,518-crore work to lay a third track in the 107-km Ernakulam–Shoranur corridor had started.
The works to redevelop key stations in the State were making good progress and care would be taken to usher in integration with other modes of commute. Big commercial spaces would also be readied, he added.
