Thiruvananthapuram: It is nothing less than betrayal of Kerala by the Indian Railways by abandoning the coach factory project at Kanjikode in Palakkad even after the state acquired and handed over land. It is being pointed out that all the reasons cited by the Railways to abandon the project were baseless.

While announcing the decision to cancel the project, the Railway Minister said the existing coach factories were meeting the current requirements of the Railways and other upcoming units would be sufficient to fulfil future demands.

Incidentally, the Railways has been literally cheating the state on the matter by ignoring the Palakkad project, as nine new coach factories were sanctioned in the public and private sectors in the country since 2012. The foundation stone for the Palakkad coach factory, which was announced in the budget for 2008-2009, was laid by the then Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi in 2012 after the state government acquired and handed over 228 acres of land. The Railways has now announced that, instead of the coach factory, some other project would come up on the land.

The coach factory, which was promised to Kerala in exchange for splitting the Palakkad division to create the Salem division, could not be realised even after 18 years. During this period, nine new coach factory projects were sanctioned – three under the Railways and six in the private sector. Among them, only one project, by the Chinese Railway Rolling Stock Company (CRRC) in Andhra, did not materialise due to political reasons. Meanwhile, the Railways also opened a coach modernisation factory at Sonipat in Haryana.

Facing a severe shortage of MEMU coaches, the Railways is currently awaiting the start of production from the factory at Kazipet in Telangana by the end of this year. It has also failed to utilise the opportunity to build Metro and Vande Bharat coaches at Kanjikode jointly with BEML (formerly Bharat Earth Movers Limited). It is also alleged that a lack of intervention from the MPs of the state has led to the scrapping of the project.