Silverline project yet to receive Railway Board’s nod

New Delhi: The Railway Board is yet to consider the proposal for the Kasaragod - Thiruvananthapuram semi-high speed rail corridor in Kerala. Efforts to elicit the response of the Railway Ministry on the corridor, which is also referred to as Silverline Project, also did not succeed.

In December 2019, the Railway Ministry had cleared the corridor in-principle, following which a detailed project report was prepared by April this year. Meanwhile, officials concerned said that that Silverline had not found a place in the list of high speed corridors approved by the Railways.

The Silverline is planned parallel to the existing railway track in Kerala at an estimated cost of Rs 63,940 crore. While 48 per cent of the amount would be contributed by Central and Kerala governments, the remaining 52 per cent will be raised as loans.

The state government had set up a Kerala Rail Development Corporation to implement the project and the cabinet had approved the project report. However, the project has to be cleared by the Railway Ministry, NITI-Aayog, Finance Ministry and Environment Ministry for the work to start. Officials at all these ministries said that neither had the state government approached them in connection with the corridor nor was any approval given.

Kerala’s Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala had recently demanded an all-party meeting to discuss the Silverline project.