India
Union railways minister paid a surprise visit to Bengaluru and met HD Kumaraswamy and cleared all issues related to suburban project. On his part, CM HD Kumaraswamy thanked the minister on behalf of Bengalureans and invited him to lay the foundation stone
Bengaluru: It’s indeed good news for all Bengalureans as all issues related to suburban railway for the garden city have been sorted out. Union railways minister Piyush Goyal was in the city and met Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to hold talks over the issue. The meeting ended on a happy note as both the CM and the railways minister agreed to put an end to many technical issues plaguing the suburban railway project and help its construction soon.
“I had gone to Tirupati. On my way back, I wanted to review the working of the southwestern railway. In February I spoke to the CM and asked him to resolve it. But that had not happened. Today, I called him up and asked him to resolve it. In one go, all conditions have been met,” Piyush Goyal, the Union minister for railways said.
The minister further went on to delineate the progress the railways had seen in Karnataka.
“Karnataka has seen railway development like never before. It is now three times as before. From 2004 to 2014, it was 23 kilometres per year. Now it is 67 kilometres per year after 2014. Doubling of lines is up by two times and electrification also increased by 21 times,” he said.
Coming to the issue of suburban network in the city, he said, “I saw that the suburban project had come to a stalemate. The project had been under discussion for 20 years. When I became railways minister in 2017, I came to Bengaluru in September 2017. It was former Union minister Anant Kumar’s dream to see suburban trains in Bengaluru.”
Piyush Goyal also went to state how he had ordered a feasibility check and how he had included the project in the budget last year.
“I ordered a feasibility study and got its report in 30 days. We included this project in the budget of 2018. And on 17 December 2018, we put it up for approval. You would not have seen a project worth Rs 21,000 crore be approved so easily. We even changed the ratio from 80:20 to 50:50,” he added.
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