“If it does not happen now, then it will never happen,” is the prevailing mood in Mangalore pertaining to the demand of exclusion of the port city from the Palakkad division of Southern Railway and making it a separate division.
As Union Railway Ministry has been conferred upon the man hailing right from the region, D V Sadananda Gowda, the expectations are running high.
Adding to the exuberance, is the priority Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel has given to the demand and this time it has been expected that there will not be stiff opposition from Kerala for the current political equation.
Jurisdictional problems
According to Railway sources, uncertainties related to the jurisdictional limits is the vital issue for creating a separate division in Mangalore. Mangalore is virtually stuck between three railway divisions--Southern Railway, South Western Railway and Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL).
Palakkad division ends at Padil and Konkan Railway starts from Thokur. Similarly, Mysore division under South Western Railway starts from Bantwal onwards. So, while carving out Mangalore division from Palakkad, under which section, South Western Railway or KRCL will it come is the question.
“There is strong pressure from Udupi region to include Mangalore as a part of KRCL. They are invoking the recommendation made in 1998, that Mangalore has to be merged with Konkan railway,” a top Railway official told Deccan Herald.
But here, the problem is that KRCL is not a part of Indian Railway but a separate railway entity. There is no railway division under KRCL. If Mangalore becomes a part of Konkan Railway Corporation , then the hundreds of crore loss running corporation could be saved through the freight revenue from Mangalore is the argument put forth by pro-Konkan lobby.
But then the port city has to wish away with the dream of division status. Secondly, Mangalore division has to incorporate under South Western Railway, with Hubli as zonal headquarters. Currently, this is regarded as the most feasible option.
Some part of Konkan Railway Corporation and upto Cheruvathur in Kasargod can be carved out to satisfy the minimum kilometre criteria. Yet another option earlier heard in Railway circles was to allot zonal status to Kerala and include Mangalore as a division under it. But the proposal was dropped as former Railway minister Mallikarjuna Kharge was not interested.
Though several red-tape bottlenecks could appear before the new division due to the jurisdictional limits and conditions, experts say that there are a lot of precedents that political will and regional lobbying helped to get the biggest slice of the cake bypassing rules. No other state like Tamil Nadu has cashed in on this aspect well in the history of Railways.
So, will D V Sadananda Gowda able to pull the strings for his home land is the million dollar question.
Palakkad will cease to exist
If Mangalore is separated from Palakkad, it will virtually ring the death bell of the Kerala division. The division’s sole sustenance depends on the freight revenue from the Panambur region.
Tamil Nadu strongly pushed for separating Coimbatore out of Palakkad divison for years and in 2007 October, Salem division was formed, reducing Kerala division by 623 km along with Coimbatore and a sizable part of earnings.
Now at the other end, Mangalore is getting ready to go out and it would reduce the Palakkad spot in Indian Railway map to a trickle.