Press & Media Center

Deepak,

This comment has been moved to this discussion post.

-Syed

Already Chief Secreatary attended meeting in Aug'2010,  he himself had written coupl of letters to DRM / SWR during Dec'2009 

Letters written by Tumkur MP & his personnal talk with him over the couple of months  & Bangalore North MP  letter to CM,  now its time for CS to take this project to Cabinet of GOK.

The suburban areas and some important towns around the city is likely to get rail connectivity as a team of state government officials, headed by the chief secretary, met the railway officials to discuss the modalities to start commuter rail services to various proposed destinations from the city early this week.

According to official sources, the railway officials have proposed that the commuter rail services can initially start from Bangalore to Mandya and Bangarpet as these routes already have two railway lines.

According to the estimates submitted by the railway officials, headed by Divisional Railway Manager Anil Kumar Aggarwal, `800 crore would be needed for developing the infrastructure and buying the rakes to start the services to both the towns.

The railways expressed its inability to introduce more trains from the crowded Bangalore City Railway Station and has requested the state government to handover seven acres of Binny Mill land for developing the infrastructure for commuter rail services from the city. 

According to the official sources, chief secretary SV Ranganath has tentatively agreed to the suggestions and is likely to convene one more meeting to finalise the modalities.

The service might become a reality in the city in another two years, sources said. The railways is planning to either shift four of its existing maintenance pits to the Binny Mill land to construct four more platforms or develop infrastructure in the Binny Mill land for introducing the service if the agreement materialises.

A study was conducted by the Rail India Technical and Economic Services (Rites) to explore the possibility of introducing commuter rail services to Mandya, Bangarpet, Kolar, Chikballapur, Doddaballapur, Tumkur and Hosur from the city and in between Yeshwantpur and Yelahanka, Yelahanka and Baiyappanahalli and Yeshwantpur and Baiyappanahalli. The report said that commuter rail service would cost lesser than metro trains as commuter rail service cost `15 to `20 crore for every kilometer.

http://newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/article1418425.ece

I think meeting was held on 7 or 8th Jan with CS of GOK others departments and SWR.  Now we do not when this current govt will have its safe  exit,  so CS of GOK should get the cabinet approved soon and send the proposal to Railway board at the earliest.  Hope by this month end CS clears this and takes to Cabinet

Why all Bangalore MP's are keeping quite and blaming center on not sanctioning the projects 

@Syed,

Do we already have some posters to be used in the venue?

Venue: Kantirava stadium (starting point)

Time: 7:05 AM

Prajagalu's in bangalore, what do you feel?

Will write asking for a meeting next week.

We should add posters more in railway stations on the CRS map such as Kengeri, Bidadi , Yelahanka, Chikkaballapur etc. also in trains used by daily travellers..

Season ticket holders who travel daily will support to us..

good ideas, keep going... lets decide which one will have maximum impact & do it. 

...but this was supposed to be the press & media thread as we were losing track of the coverage in other threads

Hi Bheema Upadhyaya,

I am ready to support Namma Railu with you.

Also I have an idea to go more public - We can use playcards that says Namma Raily benefits (along with praja link / facebook link) on our bikes or cars, so that public come to know about Namma raily advantages.

Currently, many of bangaloreans don't know about namma raily. Even in my office, I can count the people on my fingures who know about namma raily (that too they came to know, when I informed about this namma raily project).

Please comment.

Thanks & Regards,

Hemanth

Hi Syed,

I just called one such agency who does it, they told me -

(1) 2k per day - they will roam around 35-40 kms in a day

(If we hire for a month, it will cost around 50k), which we don't need.

(2) We have to provide them the banner, 16 * 8.

Here are more info - http://bangalore.olx.in/t...

I called up the num given and got the above info.

Deepak

We need a team, a good plan and lot of leg work. What I have right now is a lack of confidence in being able to execute this to satisfaction.  If we do not get enough response, then it becomes a negative.  Can we poll the group that came to the seminar at the SCM few months back... the HU folks and ITES folks and so on?

Let's think a bit more about this hard copy mailing plan.  Before getting into some thoughts on that, I would like to state something.  Namma Railu is important.  After a real hard push with help of DULT and CiSTUP and others, Sanjeev and Sathya (mainly) have gotten the idea to this stage.  We now need ALL of us to help push this train forward (apologies for the mixed metaphors).

On the letter mailing scheme, some thoughts.

1. For the idea to be effective, we need volume.  More the letters, larger the impact.

2. For people to send the letters, it has to be easy.  If you tell people to go to a post office, get stamps or a post card and send, that may kill the idea in today's age.  I am not sure how to cross that barrier?  Once the plan gets a buzz (some publicity), people may be more inclined to follow through, feeling excited to be part of the "campaign".  How do you get publicity and to that critical mass?

3. Even a letter or post card should be short and sweet.  I suggest that we (Praja) send one letter to all the targets.  The rest can be post cards with a pithy message to make it easier to write and send.

4. We need to recruit partners to get that intial wave going. Intially, it could even involve giving people post cards in return for a donation tocover the cost of the post card if they decide to sign!

As the number of people preferring to commute to Bangalore for work from the outlying towns is expected to increase in the coming years, the proposed commuter rail system (CRS) — connecting important towns — is likely to emerge as one of the important and cheaper modes of transport.

With a reliable railway network in place (about 400 km) connecting Bangalore with Kengeri, Bidadi, Yelahanka, Ramanagaram, Chennapatna, Tumkur, Doddaballapur, Whitefield, Chikkaballapur and Nelamangala, it requires minimum investment to make a functional and efficient CRS.

Being proposed as a complimentary system to the existing network of public transport, the CRS is ideally suited for satellite towns situated at a distance between 30 and 100 km from Bangalore, which can be covered within one-and-a-half hours.

Not only this, in the case of a breakdown of the public transport system that was witnessed when the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) workers went on strike, the CRS could emerge as the bulwark of transport system between the metropolis and the far-flung satellite towns, transporting large number of people.

To be implemented in stages, the CRS is expected to bring down the traffic problem in the city, as the authorities expect people to start using it once an efficient, reliable and a cost-effective system is put in place besides reducing pressure on the BMTC.

Final draft ready

Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) prepared a draft note on the commuter rail system some time ago.

However, sources in the Directorate of Urban Land Transport said that RITES has submitted the final draft, providing phase-wise plans for implementation.

“The plan has to be presented before the government for its approval and it has to be discussed with all the stakeholders,” the sources added.

Meanwhile, Divisional Railway Manager of South Western Railway A.K. Agarwal said that the South Western Railway is keen on implementing the project provided the State government shared a part of the project cost.

“We are ready for discussion and there has been no communication after the revised (RITES) report was submitted,” he said.

Incidentally, the State government has committed itself to funding the rolling stocks (coaches)

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/commuter-rail-system-may-emerge-the-cheapest/article3933804.ece

Its again GoK is sitting on this project for last 3 months without  any much progress

Praja RAAG Namma Railu team appreciates the question asked by Rajeev Chandrashekar in the parliment. Its important for our MP's/MLA's to raise the question representing the region. Appreciate him taking the interest in Commuter Rail. Hope he can help some more in pushing GoK to act. 

It is interesting how the MoR response talks about the 2009 RITES report & not the 2012. Shows GoK have been sitting on the 2012 report. There is only so much we can blame the railways. 

The commuter rail project in Bengaluru may never take off, going by the response of the authorities concerned. The Union government, in 2009, had requested the South Western Railway (SWR) to introduce trains on nine local corridors for a commuter rail. But, SWR has failed to introduce the trains citing infrastructure woes.

In a letter to the Ministry of Railways, Parliament member Rajeev Chandrasekhar had sought answers to a few questions submitted by him on the commuter rail system in Bengaluru. He had asked the railway ministry if the government has received any proposal to introduce a Commuter Rail System in Bengaluru to ease transportation within the city and surrounding towns. He had also sought to know by when government proposed to complete this project.

Replying to Mr Chandrasekhar’s queries on September 7, Minister of State for Railways Bharatsinh Solanki stated: “The government has received a proposal to introduce Commuter Rail System in Bengaluru. M/s Rail India Technical and Economics Services (RITES) had submitted a report on commuter trains in Bengaluru in 2009. Based on the report, the State government requested South Western Railway to operate trains in nine corridors. South Western Railway (SWR) has introduced two commuter special trains in 2010.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/bengaluru/commuter-rail-hits-dead-end-749

We should Thank Rajeev Chandrashekhar for raising issue  at Center in written.

Now its time for GoK to  push the project with RITES 2012 Report which is accepted by SWR & GOK in all,  all MP's from Bangalore should join hands in getting this project.

Bangalore’s planners are looking at low-cost public transport to solve the city’s traffic problems

http://www.livemint.com/2012/08/23225758/Bangalore-looks-at-BRT-local.html

Todays Vijaya Karnataka paper carries a article on CRS on its second page and it talk of what RITES has suggested on the SPV..which is ideally the way forward..

It says  Urban Development chief secretary will be the chairman..K-RIDE (Karnataka Railway Infrastructure Development) member will be on board and so will SWR regional director and other railway person, one person from BMTC & BMRCL will be part of it!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/103659972