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Konkan railway running far behind schedule

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panaji

The much-awaited Konkan railway has finally entered Goa, but soft sand and sinking embankments over a brief stretch makes it impossible for it to be opened to the Bombay-Mangalore traffic till the year end.

On June 1, the greatly tom-tommed railway along the country's west coast started running trains from Kundapur to Goa's southernmost taluk, Canacona, thus directly linking the tourist state with Mangalore (and up to Cochin in Kerala).

The link, Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said, would be extended another 33 kilometres till Margao by June 10. By the month-end, he hopes to bring it till Old Goa.

However, Konkan Railway Corporation officials say this is unlikely. Two tunnels at Old Goa and Pernem (Goa's north border) are yet to be completed, and the sinking embankments at Cortalim, on Zuari river banks, would take up a lot of time to tackle. "It is impossible to reach Old Goa before September," they say.

Earlier, Paswan had announced the whole line would be operational by August 15.

However, the major bottleneck is not reaching Old Goa -- but going beyond. The tunnel under construction between Pernem and Sawantwadi on northern Maharashtra border is proving quite troublesome.

The loose sand there is retarding digging operations. Around 200 metres of digging still remains, but the current rate is just one metre every day. KRC engineers are now planning to blast the sand out to force the pace of work.

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