Current affairs

Storm of privatization in charming Ooty: Will the heritage Nilgiris Mountain Rail become a dream?

By alagu, 10 December, 2020
Tamilnadu, Ooty, Coimbatore, Controversies

The Nilgiris Mountain Railway is one of the heritage-filled rail routes and one of the explicit examples of how the huge network is connecting millions of people through various plateaus and hilly terrains and your travel will be adventurous and excited if you travel on the Nilgiris Mountain Railyway and some of you might have experienced it and developed a fondness to travel more and if you are yet to experience such hilly travel amid perfect picturesque of nature, you might not be able to experience such travel anymore as the railway has been prefixed with the possibilities of getting privatized. 

The Nilgiris Mountain Railway has been surfaced with controversy and outrage after the reports said that the government is making attempts to privatize the train by permitting the private company to take the train chartered and run the services during the weekends. In the albeit of not resuming the mountain railway services owing to the COVID-19 restrictions, the chartered tourist operators were permitted to operate the train and they even had changed the name and color of the train, as if the ownership has been transferred to them. 

Letting the private company use public property by changing its name has stirred outrage across the state as the railways had drawn major flak from the opposition and activists. According to reports, a private company named Homemade Group TN 43 had paid around Rs 5 lakh to operate the Nilgiris Mountain Railway as a charter service during the weekends in December and January for its tourists. The company had operated a charter service on December 5 and 6 and will continue its operations by TN 43 on all weekends in December and January 2021.  

In a testament of income-based operation, the private company is charging Rs 3,000 per ticket as the train fare for the 45-kilometer route. In normal times, the fare would be at Rs 600 for the first-class ticket and Rs 295 for the second class. However, the private company has fixed the cost almost six times higher than the normal fare. The chartered train service would begin at 7.30 am from Mettupalayam and the return service from Ooty begins at 2 pm the same day during the weekends. 

As the operations of Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) have fully transferred to the private company under the guise of using the services for tourism purposes, it had stirred heated controversy and outrage as the activists claim that the transfer of operations has been an attempt of privatization in the heritage railway line. As the government is yet to resume its regular services, the move of letting the private company take the operations had angered several unions as the decision from the Southern Railways, the governing body of NMR, of letting the private company take the services and fixing higher prices had triggered massive outrage. 

Though the private company was permitted to operate the services, what more irked the activists was the company's drive of changing the name and color of the train. While the train was named TN 43,  some parts of the train were painted saffron. Following the uncertainty that could trouble the locals in using the train service,  the leaders of the opposition parties have been condemning and urging the Southern Railways to refrain from its aim of privatizing the heritage train route. 

The reports say that Coimbatore MP Natarajan had issued a statement in which he had voiced against the handicapped decision of Southern Railways while senior DMK leader and Nilgiris MP H Raja had written to the General Manager of Southern Railway to resume NMR services for the public. Raja had demanded the General Manager to initiate steps to resume its services for the public since the train contributes to the economy and connecting Ooty and Mettupalayam. 

According to our sources, it's not the first time that NMR is getting chartered. However, it was the first time where the service was renamed as TN-43 and the private company is permitting 180 passengers at a time to ply the train, which has four wagons and being one of the adventurous routes where the travelers would be awestruck in the glimpse of nature, the activist claim that the company is trying to exploit such travelers and they had been employed a handful of women similar to the air hostess and the company is providing tea and snacks for all the travelers onboard.  

As the tourist spots in Tamil Nadu still need to get permission from the government for permitting the tourists owing to the COVID-19 restrictions, the activists also raise questions on whether all the travelers had acquired prior permission and they also doubt that changing the name and color would be the prefix of privatization. As the Modi-led Central government has been filled with allegations of bringing in the private players in the government sectors, the private participation in the NMR had sparked huge outrages. 

NMR is a UNESCO Heritage site that runs from Mettupalayam to Ooty and it covers a distance of around 45 kilometers and NMR is the only rack railway system in the country due to the steep hill gradient of the Nilgiris. Amid the outrage, the Southern Railways had issued a statement in which it had clarified by claiming that the train is being hired by a private charter for tourists. In the statement, the railway board said, "It is clarified that there is not any change in the name of NMR service between Mettupalayam and Udagamandalam. However, the activists slam the railway board in inviting private participation in the public services and making NMR as the service for the elite. 

 

You may also like

Comments