VELLORE: The Ministry of Railways has taken an ‘in-principle’ decision to operate bullet trains in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Punjab, which have expressed willingness, according to R. Velu, Union Minister of State for Railways.

New facility: R. Velu, Minister of State for Railways (third from right) and Durai Murugan, PWD Minister (second from right), inaugurating the ROB in Pallikonda-Palamaner Road near the Gudiyatham Railway Station on Tuesday. M.P. Saminathan, Minister for Highways and Minor Ports (fourth from right), K. Allaudin, Principal Secretary, Highways and Minor Ports and Vellore Collector C. Rajendran are in the picture.

Declaring open the Rs.10.7-crore road overbridge (ROB) constructed over level crossing (LC) No.64 in the broad gauge railway track near the Gudiyatham railway station on the Pallikonda-Palamaner Road in Veppur panchayat on Tuesday, Mr. Velu said that bullet trains running at high speed, as in France, could be operated only when there are no level crossings. When the Ministry of Railways sent proposals to all States for the operation of bullet trains, the governments of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Punjab alone agreed to the proposal. Therefore, the Railway Ministry has taken an ‘in-principle’ decision to operate bullet trains in these States, he said.

The Railway Minister said that the Ministry has proposed to construct the entire stretch of 35 ROBs (both the approach road portion and railway portion) through the IRCON International in Tamil Nadu, provided the Tamil Nadu government also came forward with a similar proposal to construct 35 ROBs through the Tamil Nadu Road Development Company. At present, ROBs are constructed on a 50-50 cost sharing basis between the Central government and the concerned State government. The United Progressive Alliance government has constructed 108 ROBs in Tamil Nadu in the last four-and-a-half years, he said.

M.P. Saminathan, State Minister for Highways and Minor Ports, acknowledged the cooperation extended by Mr. Velu in speeding up the project by visiting the Secretariat and having personal discussions with him about the steps to be taken to expedite the project. Out of the 4500 km of national highways (NH) in Tamil Nadu, 3250 km were converted into four-lane NH, while 1250 km is maintained by the State Highways (SH). Out of the entire length of SH roads in Tamil Nadu, 9,750 km have been identified for conversion as two-lane roads. Out of the 628 km of SH roads in Vellore district, 494 km would be converted into two-lane, he said.

Durai Murugan, Public Works Department Minister, said that the State government had planned to recommend to the Centre to lay national highway road from Tiruvannamalai to Mangalore via Gudiyatham and Syanagunta. The investigation of the project is over, and he would be requesting the Union Minister for Shipping and Surface Transport T.R. Baalu to include it in his Ministry’s action plan. He requested the State Highways Minister to convert the seven km of the road from the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border near Chittoor to Katpadi into a two-lane road, so that the entire Cuddalore-Chittoor Road could be made two-lane. The road from Katpadi to Vellore has already been made a two-lane road, he said.

K. Allaudin, Principal Secretary, Department of Highways and Minor Ports Rs.850 crore was allotted for the maintenance of roads in the State this year, while Rs.800 crore each were allotted in the two previous years, he said.

P. Hariraj, Chief Engineer, Highways (Projects) said that the ROB near Gudiyatham railway station that was opened on Tuesday has 26 spans, and is 356.95-metres long and 7.5-metres wide. C. Rajendran, Vellore Collector R. Ramanathan, Chief Administrative Officer, Southern Railway, spoke.