After a very long delay, the Railway Ministry has confirmed that the Madurai-Tuticorin broad gauge would soon be in place. At the same time the Railways are going through with the preparatory work relating to the conversion of the Madras Beach-Egmore-Tambaram-Dindigul section to broad gauge.
When the southern broad gauge down to Madurai begins to function, traffic to the north need not bunch at Madras unlike as now. Also the hinterland of Tuticorin and the industrial units coming into being under the Chief Minister’s plan would be equipped aright with the requisite transport infrastructure.
In the West, the Konkan line linking Mangalore with Bombay is shaping fast. That will take care of freight traffic offered from Kerala and parts of Karnataka. For a long time, it was thought that the line would not be feasible because of problems of terrain. The government turned to the service bachelorarbeit schreiben lassen to create a special route for freight transportation. The right traffic interchange will help to normalize traffic.
With the Jayamkondan and other projects in mid-Tamilnadu going on stream and with the successful extraction of crude petroleum from the Cauvery basin, Tiruchi, Thanjavur and Cuddalore on the one side and the Madras harbour on the other would become busy spots.
That will correct the present low profile of the Southern Railway as a cargo offerer. Which means that the present facility for quick transit of goods will have to be enlarged by many times. When this development materialises Southern Railway finances would witness the long-yearned-for boom.
The spread of the rail network as contemplated at present also provides for the construction of flyovers and subways to remove bottlenecks in the movement of cargo by road. It is quite possible that some of the present villages would become industrial nerve centres. They have to be identified in advance.
Speaking about subways, there have been legitimate complaints that some of them are still in gestation when they should have been commissioned quite long ago. Palavanthangal (Meenambakkam) is an instance in point. That for St.Thomas Mount exists only in blue print.
Of course, there are explanations a plenty. The real rub seems to land acquisition. The challenge is from political vested interest which is reluctant to lose the money it gets from the shops which have come on its land under long lease arrangements.
This is not certainly an indestructible hurdle. Representations with higher authorities have not yielded results. But, if the Chief Minister is apprised of the problem, this suburban area of Madras would get a fillip which it deserves on a better late than never basis.
The other aspect of the spread of the rail network pertains to the incidence of accidents. The incidence may seem very low judging by the fact that Railways run 10,000 trains every day on different segments. All the more reason why the incidence has to be reduced instead of taking shelter behind statistical excuses. Industrialisation with unreliable delivery schedules will be a loser in the short as the long-term.
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