Thiruvananthapuram: The city can find some solace in the suburban railway project, but on the whole, the Railway Budget 2016-2017 has not been very rewarding for the state capital.
“We find the Budget highly disappointing for the state,” said Aryadan Mohammed, the minister in-charge of railways. He says even though the state took adequate measures, the result was not favourable.
“We met the Union minister with proposals for modernisation of various stations including Thiruvananthapuram and demanded new trains. Mostly we got only token provisions. The amount allocated for suburban railway line is not enough,” he said.
Projects in the Past
The city was promised several new projects in the past, but all of them remained on paper. Former minister M. Vijayakumar has an extensive list of disappointments.
A Rs 150-crore project to develop Central Railway Station into a world-class railway station, sanctioned by Lalu Prasad Yadav, got lapsed. The Kochuveli terminal, proposed to ease the congestion at Thampanoor, is yet to be completely developed.
The coaching terminal to be drawn up at Nemom never came into being and over 2000 coaches from Kerala are sent to Perambur in Chennai, every month. “The Nemom project never took off. They have allocated namesake funds for the suburban railway. The budget spells utter disappointment for Kerala,” said local legislator V. Sivankutty.
“Even the state government seems to have given up, with not too many proposals being sent to the Centre. The state government, MPs elected from the state and BJP leaders should work to ensure that the state’s demands are met,” Vijayakumar said.
Progressive Budget:
Former minister of state for railways O. Rajagopal called the budget progressive.
