KOCHI: The railway track doubling works, especially of coastal lines, in the state are seemingly on course. However, according to passengers frequenting the route, the progress has been painfully slow.
Now, as per an RTI reply from Southern Railway, the deadlines of at least three such projects have been pushed to December 2027 and December 2029. Passenger associations said the delay in completion of the track doubling work has exacerbated the travel woes of people from the coastal region who depend on the railways for cheaper transportation.
One of the three projects whose deadline has been revised is the Ernakulam-Kumbalam doubling. As per the RTI reply, work on the 7.71-km-long stretch is progressing, and the probable commissioning date is December 2029. The Southern Railway said the project has been allocated `120 crore for the 2026-27 financial year.
“The deadline for the Kumbalam-Thuravoor stretch is December 2027 and the project is allocated Rs 180 crore for the 2026-27 financial year,” said the RTI reply from Southern Railway. The earlier deadline for both projects was 2026 and was later revised to February 2027.
As per the RTI reply from Southern Railway, work on other stretches, namely Thuravoor-Mararikulam and Alappuzha-Ambalappuzha, along the route was also sanctioned by the Railway Board recently. Sources said the Ernakulam-Kumbalam doubling work is being undertaken at a cost of Rs 595 crore while the Kumbalam-Thuravoor patch is being built for Rs 803 crore. The doubling cost for the 13-km-long Alappuzha-Ambalappuzha stretch is Rs 324 crore, while that for the 21-km-long Thuravoor-Mararikulam segment is around Rs 451 crore.
The shifting deadlines have passengers worried. “Travelling along the route has become very tough,” said Bindu Vayalar, Alappuzha unit secretary of Friends on Rails (FoR). “It is very worrying to see the work happening at very slow pace.
The construction is not being done systematically,” she said. Bindu said trains are preferred by a large number of employees from lower middle class families who work in various business establishments in Ernakulam. “The situation has become more problematic as the number of passengers has increased after the work on the elevated highway (Aroor-Thuravoor) started,” she said.
Other works
Deadlines have also been revised for other track doubling work in the state. As per the RTI reply, the new completion date for the work between Thiruvananthapuram and Parassala, which is a part of the Thiruvananthapuram-Kanniyakumari doubling project, is December 2027.
The MoU for the Kanniyakumari project was signed in 2017-18. Work on the 30.88-km-long stretch is progressing, and around 70% of the same is over, it said. As for the Shoranur-Vallathol Nagar stretch land acquisition is in the initial stage, said the RTI.
“Work of a major bridge across the Bharathapuzha and the Signal and Telecommunication buildings is in progress. Tender has also been awarded for the Shoranur Yard work.
The 1.80-km-long Palakkad-Parli bypass line has been sanctioned, while the 35-km-long Thirunavaya-Guruvayur New Railway Line, which was in abeyance since 2019, was recently defrozen,” Southern Railway said.