Bangalore-Mysore rail track doubling

According to this report from Hindu, the work should have begun now and should be complete in another two years. But I dont think much has happened in that front yet. In fact in an earlier post, a co-blogger wondered if BMIC would be irrelevant if this track comes into existance.

B.V. Shenoy, can you please throw some more light on MGP please? May be there are areas in which Praja has synergies with such groups.

-Shastri

E.R. Ramachandran                                                                   30 June 2006

Believe me! Nothing has happened over the last one year.

Bhamy V Shenoy

Dear Sashtri,

Mysore Grahakara Parishat has been in existence for the last 18 years. It has more than 700 members on paper. In reality it may not have more than five active members. It is involved in solving every civic problem of the city and it helps any consumer with a problem by giving suggestions. It does not take up consumer complaint unlike some consumer groups. Some call MGP as Mysore Grahachar Parishat or Mysore Galata Parishat. Any way one looks at it, MGP has served Mysore over the years often silently and some times through the press. It has failed to develop the way it should have because of the lethargy and indifference of the people.

When I was on the railway advisory committee as a representative of MGP, I urged it to take double tracking on a war path. Then I realised there was just no interest on the part of the railways. If we want this project to happen, we need a people movement. When we want to oppose say some thermal power plant we can get some support. But when we want some positive thing to happen, we cannot get even that little support.

Bhamy V Shenoy

Er. Ramachandran has made some excellent points of getting the involvement of FICCI, CII Hotel Onwers Association etc. I have two points here.

Is doubling the track an economic proposition or a welfare measure? If it is an economic proposition why cannot railways find needed budget? If the state governemnt spends money, will they recover it?

When one looks at the traffic between Msyore and BLR, it looks as though doubling should be economical and any responsible company would have taken this project by themsleves.

Let us take a look from another angle. Since our system does not work according to market realities, we need to put pressure on the railways. If we had some dominant political leader like Dakshina Kannada had in 60s, we could have doubled the track a long time. In DK there were leading politicians like late Srinivasa Mallya who was able to bring railways, all weather port, Regional engineering college etc because of his great influence and ability. But we do not have such leaders here in Mysore. In their absence we need people movement. If we can collect signatures of one or two lakhs it can make a difference. But who will come forward to head such a massive efforts?

#1. are there social consequences to replacing 50 buses with one train?

#2. for rtc & its uniouns it is survival issue and they have innovated with "volvo", Mysore road terminal etc. nobody asked for volvo. for swr and its uniouns status quo works just fine and they can afford to talk about how there is no pressure from customers. As Dr. Shenoy pointed out, what are swr's service innovations? They have not even been able to provide access to low numbered platforms on the south side at SBC even during peak hours.

nobody asked for a PC or for a satchet shampoo but product/service providers introduced them and then customers realized oho, this is also possible, this what we needed all along.

Most of the middle,upper middle class and rich have already switched over to road. Only the poor , lower middle class, railway passholders and the daily commuters travel in train between the two cities.  Problem is lot of trains are introduced, but are introduced only for counting purpose. Trains are extended from Bangalore to Mysore for cleaning purpose. From Bangalore to Mysore, people are allowed to sit in reserved compartments , but, it would be very unclean. From Mysore towards Bangalore, most of the compartments are reserved and normal ticket holders are allowed at extra cost in vacant seats. These long running trains with sleeper class reserved coaches,   ticket is 45 rupees and reservation fees is 72 rupees.

These extended trains has to come from other cities which are usually not on time. Railways claim two Major cities are now connected by Rail such as after introducing Jaipur _ Mysore express they claimed, two palace cities are connected.Internally they do so for their convenience. How often a passenger from Mysore travel to Ajmer / Jaipur.

What is needed is a Non-Stop Train, followed by Express, followed by a passenger train repeating every 3 hours from each direction. During morning and evening 2 more trains probably going to outstations should add on to this in each direction (5 trains during morning and evening). A Janshatabdi running as non-stop from one direction and Tippu running as non-stop from other direction will best serve normal Bangalore-Mysore passengers. 2 hours for Non-Stop, 2hrs 30 mins for Express and 3hrs 15 mins for passenger is the time in which the trains can cover the distance if the track is fully doubled and which was the case when the broad gauge service between two cities was started with less number of trains.