KOCHI, February 19: The ambitious 760 km-long Konkan Railway Project, bridging the gap between Mumbai and Mangalore, is in desperate need of patronage from the Centre and the states to help it clear its debts and emerge viable within the stipulated time frame.As per the Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) concept, the Konkan Railway Corporation (KRC) was expected to construct the line and operate it for 10 years after commissioning. The KRC was scheduled to repay its debts and return the borrowed capital from the profits made during this operational phase. At the end of this "pay-back period", the Railway Ministry would have the option of buying back the equity of the state governments and merging Konkan Railway with the Indian Railways.
However, with the delay in decisions regarding the diversion of passenger and goods traffic to this newly-commissioned line, full-fledged traffic is yet to commence. KRC authorities are now wondering whether they will be able to pay back the Rs 3,375 crore debt intime.
The success of the project, which is reported to be the shortest routelinking the northern and western regions to the southern part of thecountry, now depends on the political bosses at the Centre and the states.
"Everything now depends on policy decision," said R Richardson Asir, chief engineer of Konkan Railway at Karwar, adding that, "any delay in making decisions in this regard will be costly."
The KRC is banking on goods movement to pull it through. The projected goods traffic is 7.405 million tonnes in 1997-'98, 16.768 million tonnes in 2000-'01, 19.248 million tonnes in 2005-'06 and 21.718 million tonnes in 2010-'11. The figures include traffic diverted from roads and existing railways.
The KRC proposes to handle eight goods train pairs initially. Substantial north-south traffic including foodgrain from Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Rajasthan, cement and fabrics from Gujarat and Rajasthan and minerals from the Konkan region is expected to be diverted along this line.
With its inherentadvantage of reduction in distance and modern facilities like "tatkal" reservation facilities, computerisation of allcommercial activities and centralised information system, the KRC hopes todraw passenger traffic of 21.197 million in 1997-'98, 26.988 million in2000-'01, 36.704 million in 2005-'06 and 46.388 million in 2010-'11.
At present, only six pairs of short-distance trains are running on this line. These are the Diva-Chiplun, Dadar-Ratnagiri, Mangalore-Madvaon, Mumbai-Madgaon, Mangalore-Madgaon and Karwar-Ratnagiri passenger services.
However, four major long-distance trains -- Mumbai-Kochi Nethravathi Express, Rajkot/ Gandhigram-Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani Express, Thiruvananthapuram-Hazarat Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express and the New Delhi-Mangalore Mangala Express -- are expected to be re-routed on this line from April next. According to Asir, there has been a tremendous passenger response for advance reservations for these long-distance trains.
The new Konkan line is expected to reduce theexisting 2041 km distance between Mangalore and Mumbai to 914 km, saving up to 26 hours on the journey. The Kochi-Mumbai distance will decrease from 1336-1849 km to 513 km, reducing the journey time by 12 hours.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
