What is the feeling in the Railways about the proposed ideas? The Monorail does not come under the purview of the Railways. On the proposed Commuter Rail corridors, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of the Bangalore division of South Western Railway Mr Mahesh Mangal says, "Most of these proposals are not feasible at all. There is neither line capacity nor terminal capacity to operate more trains.' As the City railway station was bursting at its seams, Yeshwantpur was made another terminal; even that has become full now. Byapannahalli is now being looked at as the next terminal. "There are many long distance trains being added with every passing year. So, there is no question of using the existing capacity to introduce more trains for short distances in and around the City.' Doubling work is presently being undertaken from Bangalore up to Tumkur and Ramnagaram. "As of now, the Commuter Rail corridor proposed from BMA boundary to Ramanagaram and to Tumkur appear to be the only ones possible.' If a separate dedicated lane is constructed only for these suburban routes, then there is some solution, Mangal added. Another top railway official calls for the construction of a four-lane track from Bangalore to Bangarpet, Bangalore to Whitefields, Bangalore to Byappanahalli and Bangalore to Hosur. "This would help in tackling passenger traffic in a big way.' Mono Rail - a better option Prof M N Sreehari, Chief Operating Officer, Consortia of Infrastructure Engineers (CIE) and Chairman of Traffic Engineer and Safety gives a huge thumbs up for the RITES plan. "The RITES report must be taken in the right spirit!' he said. He suggests that the Mono Rail/Light Rail must be expanded in a big way to act as an effective feeder to Metro Rail. " Mono Rail can be constructed for a length running over 300 kms. The planned Metro Rail can take care of only 18% of the population out of the existing 78 lakhs. It is therefore, imperative that the Mono Rail is deployed very effectively. Apart from the 60 km-length for Mono Rail proposed by RITES, Sreehari calls for introducing it along the entire Outer Ring Road for 78 kms and the Peripheral Ring Road for 140 kms. Other hugely congested areas where he wants Mono Rail to help out are the stretches from Majestic to Jayanagar, Majestic to Mysore Road and Majestic to Hasserghatta Cross (which would take care of Peenya too). The Metro Rail takes care of only North, South, East and West and ends up neglecting North East, South East and South West. Even on the time and cost aspects, Mono Rail scores over the Metro Rail in a big way. "The cost involved for laying lines above the ground for Metro Rail works out to Rs 125 crore per km and Rs 250 crore per km to lay the lines underground. Whereas, only an amount of Rs 65-70 crore needs to be spent for one km of the Mono Rail.' The Chairman added, "Work related to Mono Rail would take only 18 months and other Asian countries like Japan and Malaysia are concentrating only on Mono Rail now.' He also vouches for a multi-modal Integrated system which would be a combination of Metro, Mono, Commuter Rail Corridors and Bus Rapid Transit Corridors. "This will help in tackling 60% of the traffic.' So, why was no such solution attempted over the years? Instability in the State and unfavourable governments at the Centre have been responsible, Sreehari said. "The State government needs to have the will to bring about such an improvement and they must apply sustained pressure on the Centre so that such projects are sanctioned.' On the time frame that it would take to bring about such improvements, he was too optimistic. "We can start even tomorrow. All that is needed is to begin operations from Bangalore to Tumkur, Bangalore to Whitefields, Bangalore to Hosur and Bangalore to Kengeri. This can be slowly extended to other places. A new line can be created which will cater exclusively to these services.