Late running of long-distance and inter-city mail and express trains, rescheduling of popular trains, partial and full cancellations of passenger trains, and delay in completing track renewal work, among other things, will figure in the meeting of Members of Parliament and railway authorities to be held here on September 26.
Railways’ neglect towards the State, including the denial of new trains and rakes, delay in completing sanctioned projects, and failure in taking up viable rail projects to be executed on cost-sharing basis between the State and Railways, will be taken up by the MPs in the meeting convened by General Manager, Southern Railway, R.K. Kulshrestha.
Convened to brief the MPs on the progress of the railway projects and to listen to the needs of the elected representatives as directed by Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, the MPs are likely to raise strongly the late running of mail and express trains and other issues at the meet.
The meeting to be held at the Government Guest House, Thycaud, is taking place at a time when Thiruvananthapuram Railway Division has fallen to the 66th position with 53% punctuality and adjoining Palakkad Railway Division to the 48th position with 76.81% punctuality during the August 27-September 2 period among the 69 rail way divisions in the country.
Passengers’ issues
Passengers, especially the short-distance daily travellers are up in arms against the late running of trains, revised schedules, and lethargy of Railways in resolving the issues faced by them.
A signature campaign under the forum ‘Friends on Rails’ — a registered voluntary non-profit organisation representing more than 5,000 daily train passengers between Thiruvananthapuram Central and Ernakulam — to highlight the issues faced by them is likely to figure in the meeting. Some MPs have come out in support of them and the State government is sympathetic to their cause.
Railway authorities will spell out the problems faced by them in improving the punctuality and the steps taken to restore traffic after the recent floods and landslips.
The delay on the part of the State to handover the land to complete the doubling work will also informed to the meeting.
As Thiruvananthapuram Division’s jurisdiction extends to adjoining Tamil Nadu and Palakkad Division’s to Mangaluru, the MPs from these areas will also attend the meeting.
Top officials of Southern Railway — Divisional Manager, Thiruvananthapuram, Shirish Kumar Sinha, Additional Divisional Manager P. Jayakumar and their counterparts from Palakkkad Railway division, Pratap Singh Shami and D. Saibaba — will attend.