Railway Budget: Suresh Prabhu's SPV Wagon gets the green light in Karnataka

BENGALURU: Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is expected to propose formation of special purpose vehicle ( SPV) with states to identify critical rail projects for implementation when he presents his maiden Railway budget tomorrow.

Karnataka has already given its consent to the proposal in response to a letter from Prabhu. The SPV will consist of officers from both Karnataka and the Railway Board. The entity will be responsible for prioritising projects according to the availability of funds. The railways is currently implementing 25 projects worth Rs 24,000 crore in the state.

Prabhu, a qualified chartered accountant, who introduced new concepts as power minister before, wrote separate letters to individual state governments some time ago about the proposal. The joint venture will have budgetary allocations for projects and raise funds from markets targeting specific projects, according to railways sources.

The ministry of railways has taken to this route to complete 300-plus projects under implementation in the country currently, four of them being as old as 30 years.

The railways would require about Rs 1.9 lakh crore to complete them. In the last 10 years, the railways could complete just one project of the 99 new lines sanctioned. Sources also said the minister is expected to take the idea of his predecessor DV Sadananda Gowda forward -to focus less on new lines and pay more attention to strengthening the saturated sections.

Gowda had said that instead of investing on new lines, railways should doubling or even triple overused network, because only that would bring money . More often than not, new lines don't even earn operational costs, he had said.

“I have requested the railway minister to provide adequate funds for all ongoing railway projects in Karnataka that can be completed in 2-3 years, projects like Bengaluru-Hassan, Hubli-Belgaum, Gadag-Wadi. The minister has responded favourably ,“ Gowda, now the Union law minister who represents Bengaluru North in the Lok Sabha, told ET.

The South-Western Railway has pitched for doubling the 130-km Yelahanka-Penukonda single line as it is highly saturated with 60 trains run ning either side a day and recording a utilisation rate of 160 per cent.

The authorities have recommended doubling of this line at a cost of Rs 870 crore in the Budget. It is not known how Prabhu will respond to this. The argument in favour of this proposal is that this is also a revenue yielding line because this is the shortest route connecting the state with north and west India destinations like Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, etc.

South-Western Railway authorities, too, have aligned their thinking with that of the minister, favouring increasing the frequency of existing trains than introducing new services in big numbers. For example, there is a bi-weekly train from Mysuru to Jaipur via Bengaluru, which is always full. According to railway officials, even if they run two trains a day on this route, passengers will lap up the services. With the two coaching terminals in Bengaluru ­ the City and Yeshwantpur railway stations ­ having reached peak capacity, Prabhu is expected to make allocation to develop a third coaching terminal at Byappanahalli. Gowda, under whose constituency the project falls, said he has discussed the subject with Prabhu and extracted a promise of continued support for it.