BUMPY RIDE

Calcutta, March 25: The railway ministry wants the Bengal government to share 50 per cent of the cost of the proposed Dum Dum-Dakshineswar extension of the Metro.

The state, however, is likely to bargain for a lower percentage as it did over the Tollygunge-Garia project.

“The railway ministry has already approved the (new) extension,” said Basudev Acharya, a CPM member of Parliament and chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on railways.

The Centre, he added, wrote to the state “a few days ago asking it to share 50 per cent of the cost”.

The state government is yet to reply to the letter. But it is likely to want to lower its share to something between 33 and 40 per cent.

“In the 8.5km Tollygunge-Garia project, the state shared 33 per cent of the cost. The Bengal government will insist on the same cost-sharing formula again,” Acharya said at an interactive session organised by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry today.

There are instances of Bengal sharing half the cost of a rail project, as in the conversion of the narrow Burdwan-Katwa line into broad gauge.

But Acharya said that was because the government was setting up “a big thermal power plant” in Katwa. “We wanted the gauge conversion work to be done fast.”

Many rail projects in the state are getting delayed because of the state government’s refusal to share half the cost. “The railway ministry doesn’t pay for land acquisition. It only pays for laying rails, construction of stations and other overheads. But land acquisition forms a major component of the cost and the state bears it. If you take this into account, the share of the state would come to 75 per cent,” Acharya argued.

The standing committee chairman said the railway ministry had appointed a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for setting up three suburban train termini at Majherhat, Santragachhi and Sargola.