Kalaburagi-Bidar railway line waiting for trains since three years

KALABURAGI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the 110.4km Bidar-Kalaburagi railway line on October 29, 2017. Though it’s been three years, the people of the region are yet to benefit from the line, said to be the first line built in the region after independence.
Before Covid-19 struck, only two trips of DEMU were operated. They took about 3.35 hours for the train to run from Bidar to Kalaburagi at an average speed of 33kmph.Now with no train running on the route, people here are disappointed.
Kalyan Karnataka Grahakara Vedike president Sunil Kulkarni said, during his speech, Modi had assured that his government would not delay completing any project like the previous government. “But the line, inaugurated by the PM himself, is still in a limbo even after three years,” he said.
He said many buses ply on Bidar-Kalaburagi-Bidar route, but South Central Railway (SCR) and Central Railway (CR) are not tapping the potential of this route. “Officials of both SCR and CR are least bothered about Kalaburagi, Bidar and Wadi as they are focused on Secunderabad and Mumbai regions,” Sunil alleged.
Kedar Joshi , a techie-cum-railway enthusiast, said people of Bidar never had train connectivity to Karnataka cities like Kalaburagi. “When the PM inaugurated the line, we had dreamt of getting train connectivity. Our demands like new Bidar-Bengaluru Express via Kalaburagi, Kalaburagi-Aurangabad Passenger, Bidar-Kalaburagi-Ballari Intercity Express, diversion of Hubballi-Secunderabad Express via Bidar have not been considered,” he rued.
Both Sunil and Kedar said the Hassan-Bengaluru new line via Nelamangala, which was also inaugurated in the same year, has three-four express trains and one inter-city express (now paused by the pandemic).
When contacted, Shivaji Sutar, CPRO, CR (Mumbai), said CR has jurisdiction over just 12km between Kalaburagi and Sultanpur and SCR has to take a call on running trains on the line.
Rakesh CH, CPRO, SCR, Secunderabad, admitted that a DEMU train was being operated by SCR, which has now been stopped due to the pandemic. “As the patronage is comparatively less, more trains were not introduced after inauguration. Normally, it will take sometime to increase train operation on new lines. As the situation improves, we will introduce more trains on this line as per the instructions of Railway Board,” he added.
Kalaburagi-Bidar railway line project was approved in 1998-99 budget. But it took about two decades to be completed. The Union and the state governments jointly spent Rs 1,542 crore on 110.4km line. The project was completed in two phases — Bidar-Humnabad stretch inaugurated by Mallikarjun Kharge in 2013, and Humnabad-Kalaburagi stretch was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi in October 2017.