Bengaluru Karwar Vande Bharat Express, new controversy on the coast

CH NEWS, MANGALURU

There has been heated debate and disagreement among passengers from Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts over the proposed Vande Bharat Express rail link between Yeshwantpur in Bengaluru and Madgaon in Goa via coastal Karnataka. In the ongoing campaigns on social media in Dakshina Kannada, it is being demanded that the Bangalore-Karwar-Madgaon train should come to Mangaluru Central station along with Mangaluru Junction to properly serve Mangaluru city. However, the Railway Consumer Interest Committees of Surathkal, Udupi, Kundapur and Karwar have completely rejected this proposal. They have argued that taking the train to Mangaluru Central and then reversing the engine and bringing it back will waste about 2 hours of additional travel time for the public travelling to Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts. Reacting to this, Uttara Kannada Rail Seva Samiti Chief Rajiv Gaonkar reminded that coastal Karnataka is not just about Mangalore city. There are many important towns, educational institutions, industrial zones and tourist destinations along the 300-kilometer-long coastline. As announced by Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on September 29, the existing Mangalore Central-Madgaon Vande Bharat service is being extended to Yeshwantpur in Bengaluru via Mangalore Junction. The new service will operate as Yeshwantpur-Madgaon-Yeshwantpur Vande Bharat Express (train number 26655/26656). A trial run was conducted between Yeshwantpur and Mangalore Junction with a 16-coach Vande Bharat train on September 10. The outward journey took 7 hours 05 minutes and the return journey took 6 hours 49 minutes. The current proposed total travel time is 13 hours, and there is public demand that the Railways should reduce this to at least 11 hours through technical improvements. Like the Mangalore Central-Thiruvananthapuram Vande Bharat, if this train is also scheduled to depart from Mangalore at 6:00 am, the movement of other trains will not be disrupted, said the West Coast Railway Committee's Chairman G Hanumantha Kamath.