COIMBATORE: The Podanur -Pollachi section was converted to broad gauge five years ago, but Southern Railway is yet to revive the Kovilpalayam railway station. Currently, Kinathukkadavu is the only station from where people living between Podanur and Pollachi have access to a train.
Around 50,000 people from 50 villages situated around Kovilpalayam depend on trains to reach their work spots in Coimbatore and Pollachi. But they have to travel to Kinathukkadavu daily to board a train.
Kovilpalayam and nearby local bodies had passed a resolution in grama sabha meetings demanding the resumption of the halt station but it went in vain.
“Currently two pairs of trains are running between Coimbatore and Pollachi. If Kovilpalayam is made as a halt station, it would be a boon to the people. The Maximum Permissible Speed (MPS) in the section was increased recently and provision of stoppage should not be a problem,” said S Balakrishnan president of the Pollachi Train Passenger Welfare Association which sent a petition to the Palakkad DRM seeking to reopen the station.
T Krishna Balaji, joint secretary of the association, said “After gauge conversion between Pollachi and Palakkad, all six stations in the 54km distance resumed operations. But in the case of the Pollachi-Podanur section, only Kinathukadavu station has been re-opened.”
Speaking about the patronage, Balakrishnan said major manufacturing companies are situated in and around Kovilpalayam. There is a maize processing company for which special goods trains are being booked from Punjabon on a regular basis. There are more than 600 employees in these companies who commute daily from Pollachi and Coimbatore. The station if reopened will cater to them.
“Railways cited poor patronage as a reason to close Kovilpalayam station a decade back, but if train services are resumed, the patronage will increase as so many industries have come up here in the last decade,” he said. Palakkad DRM Ganesh told TNIE that they are trying to study the feasibility and would look into the issue.