Kerala will bear land acquisition cost of Sabari Rail project: Minister tells Parliament
The State government has agreed to acquire land using its share of 50% of the project cost. Once land acquisition by the State started, work on the project could be taken forward, said Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in reply to a question in Parliament on Wednesday.
To a specific question whether the Union government had any plans to extend the railway line to Thiruvananthapuram to connect the Vizhinjam International Seaport, the Minister made it clear that there was no relation between the Sabarimala rail project and the Vizhinjam International Seaport.
There had been ambiguity regarding sharing the cost of the project as the State had been maintaining that the liability incurred by it by financing the project through the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) should be fully exempted from the State's borrowing limit. The Union government then suggested a tripartite agreement to implement the project, involving the State government, the Ministry of Railways, and the Reserve Bank of India. However, in the memorandum submitted by the Kerala government to the Railway Minister on June 3, the State government made it clear that it would not agree to enter into a tripartite agreement as suggested by the Union government.
High-level committee
During a meeting between Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Mr. Vaishnaw in June, the Union Minister had promised that a high-level committee from the Railway ministry would visit the project site in July as part of reviving the project. However, the committee had not yet visited Kerala, though the State government had directed District Collectors of Ernakulam, Idukki, and Kottayam to restore the land acquisition units and to finalise the revised alignment of the railway line to speed up implementation of the project, said government sources.
As per the revised estimate, the project will cost ₹3,810.69 crore. The 110-km Angamaly-Erumely route was first announced in the 1997-98 Railway Budget. Land acquisition had been completed in 8 km, while the work on the 7-km stretch between Angamaly and Kalady was completed earlier.
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