Tamil Nadu Denies Railway Minister’s Charges
Sivashankar says acquisition under way, blames funding gaps
Chennai: State Minister for Transport and Electricity, S S Sivashankar, denied the allegations made by Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw that Tamil Nadu had not acquired the necessary land for implementing several railway projects in the State leading to a delay in the execution of the schemes.
Meeting media persons at Tiruchi on Tuesday, Sivashankar said the process of acquiring 148.65.30 hectares for 7 projects announced after 2021 was on and to meet the requirement of 128.65.30 hectares for two of the major projects – the other five were minor schemes – 73.65.01 hectares had been acquired.
In the Morappur-Dharmapuri broad gauge route, acquisition of land had be stopped due to law and order problems in four villages, while for the Thiruvananthapuram-Kanyakumari project the Railways had released only Rs 298.78 crore, he said
Since the State had received only Rs 739.31 crore for the railway projects in the last five years, land acquisition for most schemes could not be carried out, he said.
The State Minister specifically denied the State government writing to the Union Government seeking the dropping of the Madurai-Thoothukudi line via Arupukottai and said that the State actually had been demanding the scheme.
He listed out the routes in Tamil Nadu for which land acquisition had been completed fully and also said that for the few others the process was on and was at various levels of execution and said that the Union Minister’s allegation had no basis.
