It is back to the beginning for the railway station development project for Mangaluru as the Railway Ministry has decided to develop Mangaluru Central instead of Mangaluru Junction. The Ministry asked the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) in 2019 to develop Mangaluru Junction.
Before that the Ministry had announced developing Mangaluru Central Station into a “world-class” station.
In a letter to RLDA on September 15, the Ministry said that it has decided to entrust Mangaluru Central to the authority for development, instead of Mangaluru Junction as communicated in August 2019.
Mangaluru Central was one of the 50 stations chosen for development as announced by then Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee in 2009. Subsequently, the Dakshina Kannada district administration in 2014 recommended to develop Mangaluru Junction as Mangaluru Central was located in a congested area.
In the last 12 years however, no development took place in either of the stations.
Some of the stations mentioned in the 2009 Budget in Karnataka, including Yeshwanthpur and Baiyappanahalli in Bengaluru have already been developed.
Divisional Railway Manager of Palakkad Division Trilok Kothari told The Hindu he has just received the Ministry’s communication. Basically the development would involve private participation: either public-private partnership wherein the private partner would make complete investment or partial PPP where the Railways too bears a portion of the project cost.
The modalities, however, would be decided once the RLDA comes to conclusion about the commercial potential of the project, he said.
Mr. Kothari said the Division in the next three-four months will have to collate all the data regarding Mangaluru Central and submit the same to RLDA.
The Division would also have to make projection for future years, up to 20 or more years indicating the expected increase in passenger footfall and increase in train operations. A comprehensive report would have to be submitted to RLDA, which then would act upon the same.