BENGALURU: Minister of State for Railways Suresh Angadi and Bengaluru Central MP PC Mohan on Friday met Railway Minister Piyush Goyal at his residence in New Delhi and requested speedy implementation of the suburban rail network for Bengaluru. Speaking to The New Indian Express later, Angadi said the steps to resolve the issues that the State government had with the suburban rail project would be taken shortly. “The State has spelt out certain conditions to implement the project. We plan to sort them out soon,” he said.
MPs from Karnataka also plan to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the upcoming session and impress upon him the need to have a suburban network for the city urgently, he added. PC Mohan told TNIE that the State government was worried that the suburban rail would eat into the revenues of the Metro and so were opposing it strongly.
In a letter submitted to Goyal, Mohan urged him to instruct the Railway Board to reach out to the State government and fast track all issues relating to the suburban network. The letter pointed out that the Railway Board had recently asked nodal agency K-RIDE to restructure the project proposal and revise the Detailed Project Report. “It is worrying the citizens as they fear the suburban rail project will be further delayed,” he said.
Finish Pune-Miraj-Londa project by 2020: Minister
Angadi later held a review meeting with senior railway officers in Rail Bhavan on pending railway projects in Karnataka, said an official release. Referring to the Pune-Miraj-Londa and Hubballi-Davangere-Tumukuru doubling projects in progress, the Minister called for completing them by 2020.