With Suresh Prabhu as India’s Railways Minister, Goa, and by extension the Konkan Railway, which services the Konkan sector in Western India appears to have benefitted more than what it had bargained for.
And it’s not just about Prabhu’s recent announcements that his Ministry would invest in the doubling of Konkan Railways or that a special Goa Rajdhani could not be far away.
Since taking charge as Railway Minister on November 9, 2014, Prabhu, a native of Maharashtra, but one who has a Goan spouse, has played Santa Claus as far as Goa is concerned.
The Minister has allotted Goa its first Diesel Electric Motor Unit (DEMU), between Pernem in North Goa and Canacona in the South Goa district, special tourist trains last season, which became operational within few weeks of the request being made, the first AC double-decker Shatabdi Express Train would run between Mumbai and Goa, the possibility of a train between Goa and the religious pilgrimage centre of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
To Prabhu, who has already begun a modernisation of the Indian Railways behemoth, as announced in the railway budget earlier this year, Konkan Railway has found special attention.
“Konkan Railway when it was created was only a single track. We need a multiple track because it is very difficult to move freight traffic as well as passengers on a single track,” Prabhu said at an event in Goa recently.
Prabhu also has his mind on the profitability of Konkan Railway saying that doubling of the track would also help the Konkan Railway earn more revenue from the additional traffic.
Prabhu’s love for the region is not surprising that he hails from the Konkan region of Maharashtra while his wife Uma hails from Ribandar in Panaji.
The doubling of the Konkan Railway is an old proposal that never moved forward in view of lack of government will, high costs and an environmentally fragile region. The cost of the doubling of railway track along the 736 kms long railway stretch between Roha in Maharashtra and Thokur near Mangalore in Karnataka is expected to cost around Rs10,500 crore.
Earlier, when Chief Minister laxmikant Parsekar asked Prabhu, during a previous visit, to grant Goa a DEMU train, the request was soon agreed to and therefore it appears no without reason that Parsekar has his hopes high when he asked Prabhu for a Goa Rajdhani to connect the tourist State with the National Capital.
“We will definitely look into it. I cannot give you a timeframe, but we will definitely make it,” Prabhu said adding that a special train would be started along the Konkan Railway route in Goa by the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation in order to cater to the Western Indian state’s tourist traffic.
“If you want, we can even start an IRCTC holiday train. We can also run it for you, so that we can bring more tourists to Goa, so that we can help Goa develop economically,” Prabhu said.
Besides more and better trains, Prabhu was in Goa recently to set the ball rolling for the George Fernandes Institute of Tunnel Technology in the State, being set up by the Konkan Railway.
The Konkan Railway which is constructing the world’s highest rail bridge across the River Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir as well as more than 13 kilometres of tunnels through the Himalayas to connect the railway line from Jammu to Srinagar, had had to rely on Austrian expertise for the constructions.
The institute will see an initial investment of Rs5 crore in the State for the world’s second only such institute.