Date:23/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/23/stories/2004122304661200.htm

National

Sky Bus Metro resumes after 3 months

By Anil Sastry

The trial run of the Sky Bus Metro resumed at the Margao Railway Station on Tuesday.

PANAJI, DEC. 22. The trial run of the Sky Bus Metro — The Konkan Railway Corporation Limited's (KRCL) dream project — restarted nearly three months after it hit the roadblock at Margao Railway Station on Tuesday.

One KRCL employee was killed and three others were injured on September 25 when the Sky coaches that were on a trial run hit the Poles of the test track. The KRCL immediately ordered an inquiry and stopped the trial run.

The then Director-General of Police, Amod Kanth, had ordered registration of a case against personnel concerned while directing the corporation to stop the trial forthwith. The KRCL managing director, B. Rajaram, had promised that the corporation would make public the inquiry report before they restart the trial run.

`Permitted by experts'

However, the police are yet to complete the investigation. The Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Muktesh Chandar, who is the current DGP, said the trial run of Sky Bus has been "permitted by experts."

The severely damaged Sky coaches were repaired and installed on the track during the second week of December. On Tuesday, eight top officials of the KRCL, including Mr. Rajaram and representatives of the Austrian company — Elin Ebg — that had supplied the motors, were present during the test trial. The coaches safely moved on the track at a speed of 10 Km per hour. "All the mistakes traced in the mishap have been rectified," said Mr. Rajaram.

When reminded of his promise to make the report public, Mr. Rajaram told The Hindu he would do so on Thursday. "The report is with me and I have to put my remarks on it before making it public," he said. The real test trial would begin from December 25 for the Railway Standards Design and Safety Organisation (RDSO), Mr. Rajaram said. . "We want to finish the technical work before I retire [in January 2005]," he added.

`Out of bounds'

The KRCL has earmarked the test track area as "out of bounds" for the general public. One of the injured on the September 25 mishap was said to be an employee of the South Western Railway, who had boarded the Sky coach for fun . Mr. Rajaram said only personnel connected with the trial were allowed entry into the test track area . He said the final report on the test trials would be submitted to the Railway Safety Commission and to the Ministry of Railways.