It is back to the drawing board for the railway station development project for Mangaluru as the Railway Ministry has decided to redevelop Mangaluru Central Railway Station instead of Mangaluru Junction.
In 2019, the Ministry had asked the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) to develop Mangaluru Junction Railway Station. Before that, the Ministry had announced that Mangaluru Central Railway Station would be developed to ‘World Class’ standards.
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In a letter on September 15, the Ministry informed RLDA of the decision to entrust Mangaluru Central Station for redevelopment instead of Mangaluru Junction as communicated in August 2019.
Mangaluru Central was one of the 50 stations chosen for redevelopment by then Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee in 2009. In 2014, the Dakshina Kannada district administration recommended developing Mangaluru Junction as Central is located in a congested area. In the last 12 years however, no development took place in either of the stations.
Some of the other stations mentioned in the 2009 budget in Karnataka, including Yeshwantpur and Baiyappanahalli in Bengaluru, have been redeveloped.
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Trilok Kothari, Divisional Railway Manager of Palakkad division, told The Hindu that the redevelopment would involve private participation — either public-private partnership (PPP) wherein the private partner would make the investment or partial PPP where the Railways would bear a portion of the project cost. The modalities would be decided once the RLDA comes to a conclusion about the commercial potential of the project.
Mr. Kothari said the division would have to collate all data regarding Mangaluru Central in the next four months and submit to RLDA in the prescribed format. The data includes land available in and around Central, available infrastructure, number of trains handled, and access roads.
The division would also have to make projections for the future, up to 20 years or more, indicating the expected increase in passenger footfall and train operations.