MUTP hostage to Centre, fumes CM

MUMBAI, May 2: Chief Minister Manohar Joshi today blasted the Centre for its "indifference" towards the problems of the railway i...

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MUMBAI, May 2: Chief Minister Manohar Joshi today blasted the Centre for its "indifference" towards the problems of the railway in the city and said he would lead an agitation if they were not sorted out immediately.

At a press conference called to explain the state’s efforts to solve them, Joshi blamed the Centre for the World Bank’s decision to hold the loan for the MUTP-II project. He said that the cost of the project had gone up from Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 3,500 crore and added, “The Centre should realise the loss caused due to delay in sanctioning projects.” Joshi declared, “As the head of the state, I will not keep quiet if the behaviour of the Centre does not change.”

He said the state had written to the Bank requesting it not to stop the loan and added that he would pursue the Centre to get approval for the project. He clarified that the state had not written anything against the Centre to the Bank.

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Joshi said he had personally met Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and explained that the railway’s problems would spin off into law and order problems if the MUTP-II issue was not solved.

He clarified that the World Bank had agreed to give a loan amounting to 75 per cent of the cost of the project in December 1995. The state then sent the complete proposal to the Centre in January 1996 but it has still not been cleared. According to the final agreement, the Bank was to loan 70 per cent of the total cost and the state and the Centre were to share the remaining 30 per cent.

The state had made six proposals to the Centre of which two were recently agreed upon but only partially, said Joshi. They were: rehabilitation of people residing alongside railway tracks, a separate board for the Mumbai railway, commercialisation of land near tracks, sharing of 30 per cent of the cost of the project, finalising the suburban component and composing a technical report on the problems. Joshi charged that the Centre did not take the proposals seriously but later agreed to some of them. He added that the Centre had also agreed to some extent to three other demands, which were, the quadrupling of the Borivali-Virar track, converting the DC system to AC and constructing a sixth corridor from Carnac Bunder to Ravli Junction.

Joshi was agitated that the Centre had refused to accept three other long-pending demands: for a sixth railway track from Andheri to Goregaon, a rail link between Bandra and Kurla and a fifth- and sixth-line track between Kurla and Thane. The Chief Minister added that a committee of MPs was formed by Paswan but it never met after January 1997. But, he said, he was hopeful that the new Prime Minister would help in solving the problems.

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Joshi added that the Centre had reconsidered its obstinate stance by agreeing to allot land to rehabilitate people living alongside tracks.