MP Simha urges railway minister to release funds for land acquisition for satellite terminal in Mysuru’s outskirts

Shilpa P | NT

Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha has urged Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav to release funds for land acquisition, to speed up the execution of work on the satellite railway terminal in the outskirts of Mysuru at Naganahalli to handle the projected passenger traffic and decongest passenger traffic at Mysuru railway station.

In his letter to the minister, Simha said the ministry of railways had announced setting up of the state-of-theart coaching terminal at Naganahalli at an estimated cost of Rs 789 Crore in 2018-19. In the first phase, they had planned to build a station building, lay four platform lines, four stabling lines at a cost of Rs 496.29 Crores.

He added that the project has seen no progress after the announcement. The construction department of the SWR is said to have submitted the Detailed Project Report to the Railway Board. But the infrastructure development department of the Karnataka government has not responded to the request for bearing the cost of land acquisition(165 acres).

If the state government further delays release of funds for land acquisition, the railways can go solo in implementing the project, he said.

Mr Pratap Simha added that work on the 117.4km 10-lane BengaluruMysuru expressway which will be ready by October 2022, will reduce travel time between the two cities to 90 minutes.

According to railway sources, while the existing Mysuru railway station is saturated, the new terminal at Naganahalli which is 8.55km from Mysuru, is expected to help add new train services, and also take care of the projected passenger traffic in Mysuru area which is expected to go up by 10 percent growth annually for the next 20-25 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the project when he visited Mysuru in 2019.