Tuticorin-Kannya Kumari freight track gets new life

The project has been set a deadline of 2018, according to sources. Neither the State nor its MPs evinced interest in the project which ensured increased rail connectivity to Thoothukudi port and to the nation’s land’s end.  

The pending project saw the railway ministry announcing in the 2012-13 railway budget that the survey for this stretch was completed and forwarded to the planning commission. The project was split into two groups; the 150-km stretch from Madurai to Tuticorin via Vanchi Maniyachi junction was pegged at Rs 1200 crore. 

The 100-km second phase between Maniyachi and Kumari was estimated at Rs 800 crore. Southern Railway submitted a project report to the railway board with a rider that funding be located from extra budgetary resources.  What was galling was that no MP from the State bothered about the project while in neighbouring Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, state governments allotted funds from own resources for their state’s railway projects. 

Sources on anonymity pointed out that the TN government had once turned down projects like the new line between Ariyalur and Thanjavur and also for the Dindigul-Kumili link. This time around, the Railway Board was pressurised by various trade organisations as regards the Madurai-Tuticorin-Kumari project as track doubling was expected to reduce transit time for both freight and passenger traffic thereby enhancing connectivity.