Monday, March 12, 2012

State persuades Centre to study B’lore-Mysore HSRL

The State government, after a series of meetings with the Ministry of Railways, has impressed upon the Centre to conduct a pre-feasibility study for a high speed rail link (HSRL) between Bangalore and Mysore.

“Although the Centre has planned for six HSRLs in the country, we have convinced them to add the Bangalore-Mysore line to its list and to conduct a pre-feasibility study, after a lot of deliberation,” a senior official from the Infrastructure Development Department (IDD) said.

On the proposal sent by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s (DMRC) E Sreedharan, the official said the State government will write to him informing that the DMRC need not conduct the feasibility study, as the Centre has agreed to do the same.

Barring the Bangalore-Mysore line, the Centre has in the pipeline the implementation of regional high-speed rail projects connecting commercial, tourist and pilgrimage centres.

The corridors included are: Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar, Howrah-Haldia, Chennai-Bangalore-Coimbatore-Kochi-Thiruvananthapuram, Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Allahabad-Patna and Hyderabad-Dornakal-Vijayawada-Chennai.

Elevated corridors

As these high-speed rail corridors will be built as elevated corridors, the habitation below will remain unaffected.

In a letter dated February 3, Sreedharan, Principal Adviser, DMRCL had proposed an HSRL between Mysore and Bangalore and had said that it was “ ...eminently justified.” With a speed potential of 350 kmph, the 110-km corridor can be traversed within less than 30 minutes.

According to sources, even the Centre’s HSRL proposes a similar speed.

Besides, the State government is also holding talks with the Kerala government for the extension of the planned HSRL line between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod, covering 560 km,  up to Udupi.

“They have realised that it is not business wise to just end the line at Kasargod. Though they have evinced interest to extend the line upto Mangalore, we have communicated to them to extend it further to Udupi,” the official said.

While Sreedharan had quoted Rs 50 lakh for the pre-feasibility study, Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO), under the Ministry of Railways will be conducting the study for the Bangalore-Mysore link, as the Centre has agreed to it.

The study will highlight technical standards to be adopted, the route to be followed, estimated cost, ridership forecast and other aspects.

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