After a decade, work on doubling of track officially completed
The project completed with the total cost of Rs. 874.57 crores, with the State govt bearing two-thirds of the amount
Mysuru: More than 10 years after the track doubling work between Mysuru and Ramanagaram received administrative clearance, it is completed on Saturday, 4th November, with the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) scheduled to inspect the remaining 1.5 km of tracks.
Though the civil works, including the laying of tracks, were completed a while ago, the inspection was pending. Now that is done, the project is officially completed.
The work is part of the Mysuru-Bengaluru track doubling project and received administrative approval in February 2007. Funds were allocated in the Railway Budget. While track doubling along 137.5 km of the 139-km stretch between the two cities has been completed – and the doubled track in use – since 2014, the small stretch of 1.5 km near Srirangapatna functioned as a single-line track.
This was because the second track could not be laid till an 18th-century armoury belonging to the era of Tipu Sultan was shifted. The shifting of the armoury was imperative as it bisected the alignment of the second track. The shifting process was held up for years owing to lack of expertise and objections from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The ASI eventually consented to shift the monument but stipulated that it should not be dismantled or damaged.
This meant conducting the first-ever exercise of shifting a monument in one piece physically. The Railways lacked the technical know-how and decided to outsource the work. The Rs. 13.5 crore exercise was completed in March this year by PSL-Wolfe, an Indo-American joint venture. Subsequently, the second track was laid.
A senior official of South Western Railway said the inspection completed on Saturday and the CRS conducted trial runs before certifying the track as fit for operations. Other sources said it may take between a week and 15 days to get CRS clearance.
As 137.5 km of the 139-km stretch is already doubled, the bulk of the benefits of the project has already accrued. Completion of the doubling of the remaining 1.5 km stretch will not lead to a significant speeding up of trains, though the duration of the journey between the two cities will reduce marginally because of the elimination of stops for crossing at Naganahalli and Pandavapura.
From the date of approval, it has taken the authorities nearly 11 years to complete the track doubling work on the 94-km stretch between Ramanagaram and Mysuru. The project has helped augment the line capacity to facilitate the Railways to operate nearly 24 pairs of trains (including weekly and bi-weekly) between Mysuru and Bengaluru.
The total cost of the project, initially pegged at around Rs. 450 crores, was Rs. 874.57 crores, with the State government bearing two-thirds of the amount.