Karaikal, Nagapattinam and Nagore associations condemn railways for ignoring their demands

Representatives of rail travellers associations of Karaikal, Nagapattinam, and Mayiladuthurai and some members of political parties staged a demonstration in Tiruchi on Monday condemning the Southern Railway administration for “neglecting” the demands of the coastal towns of Karaikal, Nagore, Nagapattinam, and Velankanni with regard to train services.

Representatives of rail travellers associations of Karaikal, Nagapattinam, and Mayiladuthurai and some members of political parties staged a demonstration in Tiruchi on Monday condemning the Southern Railway administration for “neglecting” the demands of the coastal towns of Karaikal, Nagore, Nagapattinam, and Velankanni with regard to train services.

The Karaikal District Railway Travellers Welfare Association organised the protest near Khadi Kraft close to the Tiruchi Junction. 

Karaikal South MLA A.M.H Nazeem, Neravy-T.R. Pattinam MLA M. Nagathiagarajan, former MP and leader of the Puducherry Maanila Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam M. Ramadass, former MLA Nizamuddin, Karaikal District Railway Travellers Welfare Association secretary A.S.T. Ansari Babu, and Nagore Nagapattinam Rail Users Association president S. Mohan participated.

The demonstrators carried placards urging the railway administration not to ignore Karaikal and other coastal towns in the delta region.  Later, a delegation led by Mr. Nagathiagarajan and Mr. Ramadass met Tiruchi Divisional Railway Manager M.S. Anbalagan and submitted a memorandum containing a set of demands seeking their implementation.

One of the demands was extension of the Erode-Tiruchi-Erode train up to Karaikal as assured by the divisional railway officials at the Divisional Railway Users’ Consultative Committee meetings or extension of the Tiruchi-Tiruvarur-Tiruchi train up to Karaikal immediately.

Extension of the Madurai-Punalur-Madurai train up to Karaikal in the absence of direct trains either from Karaikal or Velankanni to Madurai was another demand. The memorandum said the Karaikal-Egmore-Karaikal trains were terminated at Tambaram instead of Egmore and demanded the restoration of the train up to Egmore immediately. Setting up a pit line and maintenance facility either at Karaikal or Velankanni was yet another demand.