Kochi: Kerala’s only train to Rameswaram on the east coast may be pulled thanks to the lackadaisical attitude of authorities at the Thiruvananthapuram Railway Division. The Ernakulam-Rameswaram special train, which has been running full since it was rolled out three months ago, is unlikely to be extended beyond June 25.
The train, which goes through Palakkad, Pollachi, Palani and Madurai to the busy pilgrim center, was extended beyond the original two-month schedule considering the heavy demand. Even though passengers are still making a beeline for the train, the authorities are planning to end the service instead of running it every day to meet the demand.
Railway’s commercial department claims that it had written to the Southern Railway headquarters and the operating section to regularize the service but the letter seems to have vanished in the labyrinths of bureaucracy.
Also read: Rameswaram: Of land, sea and a bridge
A lack of coordination among railway departments has deprived Kerala of much needed services. Railway honchos seems to be least bothered. Many of them are against the introduction of new services because more trains would mean more work for them.
Several trains including the Ernakulam-Salem Intercity and the Ernakulam-Vailankanni, have been recommended to benefit Kerala but none of them are anywhere near operation. Recommendations to run the Thiruvananthapuram-Nilambur Rajyarani Express as an independent service and to run daily the Kannur-Alappuzha, Thiruvananthapuram-Kannur Janshatabdi and MEMU services have also received a quiet burial.
The MEMU services could be run daily with the addition of just one MEMU rake yet the officers on top have not done anything significant to get that in the last four years.
The Thiruvananthapuram division has failed miserably to regularize the profitable Chennai-Ernakulam Suvidha Special, Kochuveli-Mangaluru weekly train, Kochuveli-Hyderabad and Kochuveli-Guwahati trains.
The officers in the Thiruvananthapuram division try to pass the buck to their superiors, saying their demands are not even listened at the zonal headquarters.
The railway’s structure comprises a division, zone and railway board. The recommendations from the division are processed at the zone (Southern Railway, in this case) and decided by the board. The recommendations sent by the two divisions in Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad - seldom go beyond the Southern Railway headquarters. They do not even help in matters which do not need the railway board’s approval.
Demands from the passengers from Kerala are stonewalled by lame excuses that the state does not have enough terminals or pit lines. At the same time, authorities have done little to get on track the terminal announced for Nemom, the pit lines for Ernakulam and Kochuveli and the third track between Ernakulam and Shornur. The restoration of the Kochi harbor terminus is nowhere near completion even two months after the deadline.
The projects announced in the budget remain on paper. The authorities who blame a lack of infrastructure in Kerala are sitting on the development projects.
The people’s representatives who are supposed to chase the projects are not helping either.