Mumbai, Aug. 27 -- The Railway Board's order detaching Mangaluru region from the Palakkad Railway Division (PRD) has left the division facing an existential crisis and raised the prospect of a merger with the Thiruvananthapuram division. Officials and rail users in Kasaragod district have urged measures to develop railway infrastructure at Kumbla and Manjeshwar stations, where the Railways has sufficient land. The PRD came into existence on 31 August 1956 and was the first railway division in the area that later became Kerala.
Losing Mangaluru will strip the PRD of 90 per cent of its freight revenue from Mangaluru Port and half of its annual revenue from Mangaluru terminals, and it is expected to cost the division more than 100 jobs to South Western Railway (SWR). Sources in the Southern Railway said the system had shifted towards a rate of returns approach and priority to freight over a decade. The division currently has only one pit-line at Palakkad Town, while stabling lines at Shoranur and Kozhikode are reported as saturated.
A former division official said the PRD had invested in pit-lines and stabling at Mangaluru Junction and had spent considerably on passenger amenities in the region, and that the board decision had created a serious crisis. Zonal and division authorities will now consider developing terminal facilities at Kasaragod stations to compensate for the loss of assets. Rail users said decades of demand to upgrade Manjeshwar, the northernmost station in Kerala, and Kumbla had been vindicated by the change.
Local associations argued that Manjeshwar's additional lines had been used to stable rakes during congestion at Mangaluru Central and that there was sufficient space to develop a small terminal including repair of an abandoned BSNL quarters to house staff temporarily. Advocates proposed Kumbla as a satellite station for Kasaragod, which lacks adequate space for a full terminal. Elected representatives including the Kozhikode member of parliament described the reassignment as unjust, and the Kasaragod District Development Committee demanded withdrawal of the order, while the local MLA moved a resolution supported by district legislators and the panchayat president.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Construction World.