Kerala To Go Ahead With Silver Line Semi-High Speed Rail, Project Finds Place In State Budget

The Kerala Budget for the 2024-25 fiscal presented by state Finance Minister K N Balagopal has made clear that the state government has not dropped the Silver Line semi high-speed rail project.

In his budget speech, Minister Balagopal said the government will forge ahead with steps to realise the SilverLine project, a dream project of Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.

The project involves the construction of a 529.45-kilometre-long semi-high speed rail corridor connecting the northern-most Kasaragod district with the state’s capital, Thiruvananthapuram, in the south, and running “semi-high-speed trains” at an operating speed of 200 km per hour.

The corridor is to pass through 11 of the 14 districts of Kerala and will be implemented by the Kerala Rail Development Corporation (K-Rail), a joint venture between the Ministry of Railways and the Kerala government.

The Rs 63,941 crore crore project, has been in the cold storage for long, with no final clearance from the Railway Ministry.

During a media briefing on the Union Budget for 2024-25, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Railways, noted that Kerala not shown any keen interest in following up the Silver Line project. He suggested that the state government should be asked if the project had been abandoned.