kalaburagi: Is Kalaburagi going to get the much-talked about railway division or not? This question is haunting the minds of not only the general public in the region, but also the chief architect of the project and Congress Party leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who sanctioned it as Railway Minister in the UPA II government in 2014.
Apprehensions are being expressed about the setting up of the railway division office here as virtually nothing has been done in the last one year to execute the project. No funds have been announced in the budget presented on March 2015 and even Rs 5 crore sanctioned by Mr Kharge as Railway Minister while announcing the project in the vote on account in 2014, has not been made use of.
Disappointed over the tardy progress of the project, Mr Kharge asked railway officials at a review meeting: “Please tell me whether Kalaburagi is going to get the railway division or not”. To this the officials replied that the project was very much on the agenda. “A proposal has been sent to the Railway Board. Once the Board gives its consent, construction work will commence”, the officials replied.
This did not satisfy Mr Kharge who remarked; ‘It’s unfortunate that even the Rs 5 crore allocated for the construction of the office on the land allocated by the government near the railway station has not been utilised by the Railway Vikas Nigam Limited.
“He was also unhappy over the tardy progress of implementation of other railway works sanctioned by him such as construction of railway over bridges despite providing funds. “What will happen if they are undoing whatever I had done?” he asked.
When Mr Kharge asked the officials when the trains would start running from Kalaburagi in view of the completion of the pit line, the officials told him that the matter was left to the decision of the division office at Sholapur.
