The efforts of the Tripunithura Rajanagari Union of Residents Association (TRURA) have finally borne fruit with the Southern Railway allotting halts for four new trains at the Tripunithura railway station.
The authorities have allotted halts for the Vanchinad Express (Ernakulam to Thiruvananthapuram), Guruvayur- Punalur Fast Passenger, Parasuram Express (Nagercoil Junction to Mangalore) and the Bangalore -Kanyakumari Island Express at the station this year.
TRURA chairman K P Prasad said they had to stage protests, including dharnas, to get achieve this.
“We have been fighting for a halt for more trains in Tripunithura since 2008. In 2010 and 2012, we arranged family meets and ensured the participation of the politicians including the MP, Union Minister, state ministers and municipal authorities and explained our desperate need for raliway halts to them while asserting out demand. Also, we proved that the Tripunithura railway station could collect nearly `50 lakh from ticket sales in a month with only two trains - Venad and Chennai Mail. We also proved that the revenue is much higher than the ticket revenue collected ta Karunagapally, where as many as 13 Express trains have got a halt,” he said.
Prasad further said that Supreme Court advocate and former AICC secretary Renji Thomas, Union Minister K V Thomas, P Rajeev MP and Charles Dias MP were instrumental in the station finally winning the long struggle for railway halts, and thanked them for their cooperation.