Mangaluru (The Hindu): Rail users in coastal Karnataka are gearing up for another round of legal battle as the South Western Railway (SWR) is hesitating to meet their demand of diverting the Bengaluru-Karwar night express train via the newly commissioned Bengaluru-Hassan line, which has reduced travel time by close to three hours.

The High Court of Karnataka had directed the SWR in February to consider the representation to divert the train via Hassan on a writ petition filed by Sanjay Revankar, a resident of Kadwad, Karwar, who is a member of West Coast Rail Yatri Abhivriddhi Sangha.

The sangha’s vice-president Rajeev Gaonkar, who had successfully waged a legal battle to bring the train to Karwar earlier, attended the meeting with SWR on March 27 as per the court direction. However, he said the Zone had just begun the process of seeking rail users’ opinions on train diversion.

Mr. Gaonkar told The Hindu that the sangha had been demanding a diversion for many years and SWR, well aware of the new line opening, should have completed the consultation process by now.

Bus lobby

“I told the officials that they have succumbed to bus lobby pressure,” he said, adding that it was ridiculous that the train took 17 hours to traverse a 500 km distance. Instead, the Zone has already proposed to divert the Yeshwantpur-Karwar tri-weekly day train via Hassan, which is not at all patronised by travellers beyond Kukke Subrahmanya. “This is an eyewash tactic,” Mr. Gaonkar alleged. He claimed statistics revealed that hardly 8% passengers are from Mysuru on the night train while the rest are travellers between Bengaluru-Mangaluru- Karwar.

If SWR intends to cater to travellers from Mysuru, let the train start from Mysuru, come to Bengaluru and run on the new line. Thus, direct travellers between Bengaluru and Karwar could complete the journey within 11 hours. SWR can also extend it till Goa (Madgaon) thereby connecting Mysuru and Goa – two important tourist destinations, Mr. Gaonkar said.

He said the sangha has given April 14 as the deadline to SWR to concede to the demand. “Otherwise, we will move the High Court, which has assured that it would look into the grievance if the SWR does not act on the representation,” he said.