The Railway Board on Thursday informed the Kerala High Court that sufficient details of the technical feasibility of SilverLine, the proposed semi-high-speed railway project, are not available in the detailed project report (DPR) submitted by the Kerala Railway Development Corporation Limited (K-Rail).
The board also submitted that Railways had not approved the social impact assessment (SIA) study being conducted by the State. The submissions were made when petitions against the laying of survey stones for the SIA came up for hearing before Justice Devan Ramachandran.
It was submitted that Railways had not concurred with or requested the State government to lay survey stones or markers during the course of the survey being conducted for the project.
In a statement filed by Assistant Solicitor General S. Manu, the board said the project had not yet been sanctioned. No financial approval had been granted to the project as per the guidelines of the Union Ministry of Finance. In fact, consideration of the project would depend on the techno-economic viability of the project.
The in-principle approval (IPA) by Railways meant presentation of the DPR, including financial. In fact, sufficient details of the technical feasibility were not available in the DPR.
Therefore, K-Rail had been advised to provide detailed technical documents such as alignment plan, particulars of railway land and private land, crossings over existing railway network and duly depicting affected railway asset through zonal railway after site verification. The financial viability will be examined and firmed up thereafter.
In its affidavit, K-Rail submitted that the order issued by the government said specifically that the laying of survey stones had been dispensed with and K-Rail used either the geotagging method or markers on permanent structures for demarcating the boundaries.
The court adjourned to June 9 the hearing in the case after directing the Director of Survey and Land Records to file a statement with regard to laying survey stones.
