Commuter Rail - Match Fixing

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Commuter Rail

We are now past all the Budgets and big-bang announcements from both State and Central Govt. Time for some close up analysis of all these unfortunate annual Tamshas. It is clear by now that, in the GOK state budget, Railway Budgets and the latest Union Budget, there was remotely any hint of support to commuter rail service proposal. Not that we had any expectations from both the state and central govt.

Unwilling State - Government of Karnataka

First let me start with the state budget, which was presented on Feb 8, 2013 by the Chief Minister himself. The city of Bangalore did see a hint of some attention with Rs. 6,203 crores for city development. Why not ? Bangalore contributes 30% of Karnataka's GDP. What it gets in return is peanuts. The same complaint that Mumbaikar's accuses central govt of. In the entire state budget document, there is no mention of support or approval to CRS proposal unlike in 2011 and 2012 budgets.

Having closely followed and pursued the matter with the state govt agencies like DULT, IDD and Chief Secretary's office, I know pretty much before hand that we are yet again set for disappointment. Reason being, after RITES had submitted its report CRS to DULT, the CRS proposal file just managed to travel to Chief Secretary's office. Through numerous emails, personal conversations with the officials at DULT, IDD etc got the impression that nothing tangible has been achieved since the task of CRS was given to DULT to pursue in 2010. Though there were numerous meetings on the subject, nothing concrete has either been proposed or considered to make CRS proposal a reality. The considered view among the GOK bureaucrats is that Namma Metro should be priority over all other proposals. BMRCL in the zeal of getting all the attention it needs is pretty happy to play the big brother role in deciding which urban transport proposal needs to be taken up. This should not surprise anybody, until few months ago the Principal Secretary incharge at UDD had no clue about Commuter/Suburban Rail. For most of the Babus, Namma metro is the commuter rail. No offense to them, as somewhere along we at Praja also didn't reached out all the Babus to brief them about the proposal. Hopefully SB and dvsquare has signed up to raise the CRS awareness in Babudom shortly.

Though various Praja members had reached out to City MLAs, Chief Secretary and the CM, but nothing concrete was seen or heard from them. Repeated requests for action and even request for meeting remained unanswered. Clearly, there was nothing concrete or substantial was done at state govt level. It will not be wrong to say that GOK has not taken up CRS proposal for consideration leave alone lobbying with Union Govt for money and necessary approval.

Indifferent Center - Indian Government

The story at the central govt. is no different than the state government. The Railway Budget, Union Budget is bereft of any reference to the commuter rail projects in general unlike in 2011 and 2012 budgets. There was ZERO expectations from railway budget as railways is broken and it is struggling make its need met. With 92% operation ration we can hardly hope for CRS proposal in Railway Budget.

Adding salt to the wound was the recent RTI reply from PMO that there was NO proposal from GOK on CRS. Who should we blame now? May be ourselves for not being on streets to demand CRS.

It is not that center was not approached by Praja. Through various letters, emails, personal meetings, many Parja members made an effort to garner support for CRS. Barring couple of MPs writing letters to PM and CM, there was complete silence from all others including the Union Ministers from state. The apathy runs across the parties, if Veerappa Moily acknowledges the petition, petitions to S M Krishna, Muniyappa, Rahman Khan, Venkaih Naidu, P C Mohan, Rajeev Chandrshekhar, Chandre Gowda did not even yield acknowledgement leave alone any action.

We all know Ministry of Railways is highly politicized ministry and project of CRS nature requires hard political lobbying and bargaining. Who has the political will for that? No Body. It requires the lobbying of nature that Former AP CM Chandra Babu Naidu did for getting MMTS to Hyderabad.

We have a indifferent state govt which is the worst performing govt by any standard that state of Karnataka has seen. If the trend continues, the day is not far off where GOK will be pleading for special status like Bihar and other states.

If this is not a perfect "MATCH FIXING", what else is this? Only beneficiaries in this match is  babus, experts, politicians, corporates who sees virtues and interest in expensive infrastructure projects that runs into 10 of thousands of Crores, not in projects like CRS, Namma Railu.

Would the upcoming elections in May make a difference to this indifferent attitude of the state and union govt.?

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Passengers protest over train delay

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Hundreds of train passengers, especially those from Kolar and surrounding areas employed in Bangalore, faced inconvenience as the Marikuppam- Bangalore(Swarna) passenger train was stopped before the K R Puram station to facilitate passage of a goods train heading towards Tumkur.

Irked passengers staged a dharna on the tracks for a few minutes before the railway officials pacified them to get into the train. The train which left Marikuppam at 6.20 am was supposed to reach Bangalore City railway station by 9.15 am. However, due to the delay, it reached the City station at 10.30 am.

Arrival of three other trains including Yeshwantpur-Hatia Express and  Udyan Express (Mumbai to Bangalore City) were delayed for the same reason.

For Uday Kumar, a painter with a private company in Nayandahalli along Mysore Road, Swarna Passenger is nothing but a lifeline. “I take this train every day from Marikuppam to the City and then board a bus to reach my workplace.

Every time the train is delayed, I reach office late and get an earful from my boss. On Tuesday, the train was stopped twice on the way, for over 20 minutes near KR Puram and 10 minutes near Whitefield.

Such delays have been a regular affair and repeated complaints to railway officials have not solved the problem. “Recently, we submitted a detailed complaint to Anil Kumar Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager, South Western Railway (SWR), who promised to take steps to resolve the problem.” Dharanesh added.

When contacted, Suvankar Biswas, public relations officer, SWR, said the Swarna Passenger was stopped for 15 to 20 minutes due to some problem with passage of a goods train.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/316774/passengers-protest-over-train-delay.html

I think this good thing happning as Commuters are coming out and protesting the attitude of the Railway Officals pathetic approach towards Commuter Rail.  I feel sorry for those dailywage earners depening on these few passenger Trains.

With one more passenger Train sanctioned in recent Rail budget between Bangalore - Marikuppam,  making Bangalore - Tumkur passenger train 6 days to 7 days and extending few  trains towards Mysoe which will connect the North Bangalore with South Bangalore by Express Trains.  

Lets see how this affect the so called white elephent  METRO.

 

 

sir, passenger's

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sir,

passenger's protest...some one pacify them...and things back to square one...no one at GOK was never bothered...and will bother either,,,,we need leaders like Modi or Chandrababu naidu...to improve infrastrucure unfortunately we dont have such go-getters in karnataka...

  "HC dismisses plea for

Efforts of Mr Chopra who is senior citizens :

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Not looikng at the outcome of Court,  efforts put in by this senior citizens Mr Chopra is remarkable and he tried it single person without  taking help of  any Lawyer for arguing in the court.

Now will the GOK or IR will take interest to get the suburban rail for Bangalore 7 surrounding 7 dist.  GOI & GOK are spending 30,000 crore on MTRO,  6000 Crore on Elevated roads,  but do not want to spend 8000 crore for 6 dist of Karnataka for Commuter Rail???

 

Sanjeev & Sathya all over news

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Hindu carried an article yesterday abt commuter rail and Sanjeev and Sathya are all over it!

http://www.thehindu.com/t...

Sir it was very sad to see

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Sir

it was very sad to see the HC dismissing the PIL. The only hope is also gone !! One has to whole heartedly appreciate the effort of Chopra sir. He really tried hard to get much needed CRS to Bangalore. I am very eager to see the further development or it has come to a stand still ?? 

Read the article ,it's good. Hope the people who make decision should read and try to do something about CRS. 

OUR BABUS HAVE TO LEARN FROM TN/AP - where they are keenly developing all modes of transportation be it CRS, metro or mono - all modes are being taken up simultaneously. Hyd and chennai - started CRS long long ago.

  It's Bangaluru's BAD LUCK - we are ruled by people who are not that qualified to understand the importance of CRS. They are only good pulling one another !!!  Probably , I guess they all are good kabbadi players. 

 

Kamal. 

A PIL is very tricky

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It is very tricky to file a PIL in the area of commuter rail where this is  matter of either (a) A decision by the executive (b) Or an act of the legislature.  THe judiciary has not business getting involved in giving direction here.

I am not thrilled at the delay in commuter rail, but it would serve us well to recognize this distinction.

MOM of 26th Feb'2013 on Commuter Rail between GOK SWR

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With GOK Cabinet approved the Commuter Rail, now proposal has to go to Central Govt after the elections r over.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/137657303/MOM-of-Commuter-Rail-Meeting-22-02

Hi, It was very nice to see

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Hi,

It was very nice to see MOM. hope soon after the election the new govt takes it further with out any delay...unfortunately none of the party's have included the CRS in their to do list.....

Regards

kamal..

Approval for DPR, SPV and empower committee!

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So this is confirmed. What is approved in the last cabinet meeting for CRS is:

  1. Preparation of DPR for Phase-1A by RITES
  2. Acquisition of Binny Mill Land
  3. Creation of Empower committee
  4. Setting up of Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)

Per RITES 2012 Report, Work identified under Phase-1A includes:

  • Procurement of 5 MEMU rakes
  • Making SBC – BNC into twin single line system and BNC-BYPL automatic signalling (or IB)
  • Development of 4 pit lines at BYPLN
  • Development of 2 additional pit lines at YPR

Routes:

  • Bangalore - Mandya
  • Bangalore - Bangarpet
  • Bangalore Tumkur

Phase-1A in a nutshell

Investment

(in Crores of Rupees)

Potential $

(Services that can be additionally introduced)

Additional Services proposed to be introduced #

Commuter trips that can be generated per day at the end of Phase 1A

173

24

24

4,00,000

NOTE: Currently about 1.5 Lakh commuters use trains for daily commute on all 6 directions.