MANGALORE AREA OWNERSHIP CONFUSION

Mangalore area complex consists of Mangalore, Pamambur, Thokur, Padil and Kankanadi. The Mangalore complex comes within Mangalore City Corporation limits in Karnataka. As far as Railways are concerned Mangalore area is a confluence of three Railways viz Southern Railway, South Western Railway and Konkan Railway Corporation Limited and has got three distinct streams of traffic fed by all these three railways Mangalore station Kankanadi Padil & Panambur are controlled by Southern Railway Thokur and Mangalore Refineries and Petro Chemicals Limited by Konkan Railway Corporation Limited and Bantwala by South Western Railway The yards at Mangalore Bunder Kankanadi and Panambur have been with Southern Railway right from inception The Panambur yard serves Mangalore port one of the major ports of India dealing with about 40 million tones of traffic The Panambur Railway yard is vital for Railways on account of its traffic of about 5 million tonnes per annum. The Bunder goods shed which serves Mangalore city accounts for 20 to 25 rakes of freight traffic every month.

While forming Konkan Railway Corporation Limited during 1998 there was need for deciding its jurisdiction. Logically, the Konkan Railway Corporation Limited should have got the entire Mangalore Coaching Complex including Mangalore Coaching area, Kankanadi and Panambur. Since Mangalore coaching complex was financially unproductive, Konkan Railway Corporation Limited wanted, at that time, to take over jurisdiction only from Kankanadi.Atthesametime, Southern Railway wanted control over Panambur area since it was retaining Mangalore. Railway Board decided to create the jurisdictional boundary of Konkan Railway Corporation Limited from a new station Thokur, while retaining Mangalore & Panambur with Southern Railway.

When South Western Railway was formed in 01.04.2003, they too laid claim, mostly on regional consideration, on the Mangalore Complex. But by then there were two other players viz. Konkan Railway Corporation Limited and Southern Railway in the equation and not much headway was made.

Till today, the status quo remains, even though periodically claims and counter-claims are made by all three parties i.e. Southern Railway, South Western Railway and Konkan Railway Corporation Limited for jurisdictional control overthis area.

OPERATIONAL PATTERN : SNAKES & LADDERS

Operations in this area are unique since they involve close coordination between three different zonal railways. All traffic moving from the Mangalore Port Complex (Panambur Yard) towards South Western Railway moves over a stretch which belongs to Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd. Ironically, traffic from Mangalore Port Complex in Southern Railway to other destinations on Southern Railway too has to move via KRCL.

Similarly when South Western Railway has to send trains to Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd, these trains have to traverse over a portion of Southern Railway that is Padil or Kankanadi. If South Western Railway has to send a train to the Mangalore Port Complex, it has to travel over a portion of Konkan Railway namely ThokurStation.

Though in itself, movement over multiple Railways is part and parcel of trains operations, procedures in train operations like obtaining and granting line clear cause delays and detentions even though the entire stretch of track is 33 Kms. only.

CONCLUSION -THE GORDIAN KNOT:

However, regardless of this dichotomy and complexity, it is obvious that the train operations of all the players in the game suffer the most.

Thus, even though logically the smartest solution would be to handover Mangalore area operations to one of the players, Southern Railway, South Western Railway or Konkan Railway Corporation Limited, the complexity of the genesis and evolution of control over the Mangalore area in itself seems to override an obvious solution.