The Wagon Factory in Kulti, West Bengal would come in 12 acres of land offered by SAIL

NOTE: The Wagon Factory in Kulti, West Bengal would be set up in 12 acres of land offered by SAIL whereas Karnataka offered 100 acres of land to establish a Wagon Facotry, in that respect Kalahandi could easily offered 100 acres of non-forest and unused land near Jaring, Narla, Kesinga, etc. The state Govt politics and bureaucratic lobby is getting exposed.

New Wagon Factory to be built at Kulti

Frontline India, Sept 14, 2010

The Public Sector Undertaking of Ministry of Railways namely RITES Limited signed a joint venture agreement with the Public Sector Undertaking of Ministry of Steel namely Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) for setting up a Wagon Manufacturing Factory in Joint Venture (JV) at Kulti near Asansol in Bardhman district of West Bengal.

Minister of Railways, Mamata Banerjee had announced the setting up of the wagon factory in the Railway Budget 2010-11, along with four locations are Secunderabad, Bhubaneshwar/Kalahandi, Haldia and Guwahati.
The proposed joint venture Wagon Manufacturing Factory is planned to be equipped to handle 1500 wagons per annum (manufacture of 1200 wagons and rehabilitation of 300 wagons). The factory is expected to manufacture BOXN type wagons including specialized high end wagons. It can also undertake manufacturing modern Stainless Steel wagons with marginal investment in plant and machinery. The project cost is envisaged to be around Rs. 85 crores in Phase-I going upto Rs. 120 crore in Phase-II. In May, 2010, SAIL and RITES entered into a MoU for setting up this factory. Feasibility study was subsequently conducted by both the organisations.

SAIL will provide land measuring about 12 acres inside SAIL Growth Works (SGW), Kulti. The plant is envisaged to be erected and commissioned within 14 months from the date of incorporation of the joint venture company.  

State gets wagon factory, suburban trains
Decan Herald, Feb 25, 2011

Mamata Banerjee may have upset many states by her attempts to woo West Bengal voters with more projects, but the railway minister -who presented her budget in the Parliament on Friday- did not let down Karnataka.

In fact ‘Didi’ has actually been liberal, sanctioning a wagon-manufacturing unit at Kolar which is represented in the Lok Sabha by her junior colleague K H Muniyappa. She has also granted several DEMUs-suburban trains. Kolar has something more to cheer about as Muniyappa has succeeded in getting more for his constituency.

Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, in a recent letter to the Railway Minister, had requested a wagon-making factory and promised to give 100 acre land and other infrastructure.

The State was granted seven sub-urban trains — six sub-urban local trains DEMU (Diesel Electrical Multiple Unit) and a MEMU (Mainline Electrical Multiple Unit) train services. Of the six DEMUs, three will connect Bangalore with neighbouring towns such as Bangarpet, Dharmapuri and Kolar and rest are Kacheguda-Raichur, Raichur-Gadwal, Marikuppam-Bagarpet. One MEMU will run from Bangarpet and Kuppam.
The eight new express trains would only run or connect the southern part of the state causing disappointment to north Karnataka. However, extension of some of the trains is certain to delight passengers as the railway minister has granted long-standing demands such as extension of Yeshwanthpur -Mangalore train to Karwar, Mysore-Shimoga Train. to Talaguppa, Hyderabad-Wadi Express train to Gulbarga.

Extending Train Management System to Bangalore station would help passengers get information on running trains, while Bangalore City station would also get modern trolleys with rail yatri sevaks.

The pre-feasibility study for Chennai-Bangalore golden railway corridor, which the Minister had announced, is a significant step forward in realising setting up an industrial corridor between the two cities. Though Karnataka has been insisting that the corridor should be extended till Belgaum, the study limits itself to Bangalore.
Setting up a polytechnic at Hubli-Dharwad will help northern Karnataka students to get skill development training.

The announcement of survey for 16 new railway lines, including doubling of Bangalore-Hubli, Birur Shimoga, has raised hopes for the people of the region that would benefit them in the long run.
The Railway Minister sanctioned five new projects involving an investment of of Rs 1996.90 crore to construct 364 km railway line. As a first step, Rs 15 crore has been earmarked in this budget.
Projects announced for Karnataka are likely to increase the state railway network to 25 per cent from 15 per cent in 2008-09, claimed the Minister of State for Railway.
Mamata also said Rs 873.79 crore has been allocated in the budget for the state for on-going projects --including construction of new lines, gauge conversion, doubling and electrification. Last year, the sum was only Rs 532 crore. "With the increase of allocation in this year's budget, compared to the last year, the railways ministry is keen to enhance the infrastructure in the state,” the minister said.
The state was hoping to get nod for many more long pending projects like Bangalore-Chamarajnagar-Satyamangala, Kadur-Chickmaglur-Sakaleshpur, Bidar-Gulbarga, Munirabad-Mehboobnagar, but none of them were considered in the budget.