Lets start building the list of questions that we will put in this RTI.

Let me put out the context first, and then we will build the questions:

• We don't know the details of 50% cost sharing agreement between GoK and SWR regarding Commuter Rail.
• What exactly will be Circular Rail? Based on statements from Mr Muniyappa, these could involve laying some new tracks, and some doubling work to make a ring rail like system around Bangalore. There is not talk of Circular Rail coming in to the city
• What is the status of an experiment that was proposed over 9 months ago - run trains from Chikballapur to Cant station?

Since we will be at it, why not ask questions abot load on SWR's tracks in the city.

• Load on Byappanahalli-Anekal stretch. Status of land around this stretch - does SWR have buffer space for a possible doubling.
• Load on Cantt - Whitefield stretch.
• Load on Byappanahalli - Hebbal - Lottegollahalli stretch, scope for doubling.

There are lots of articles in local papers about shallow announcemens (shallow = not on the floor of the house, but in public meetings). See http://www.deccanherald.com/content/55910/cm-proposes-local-train-city.html and more.

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We will need to ask questions for which crisp answers are possible, otherwise we know how some of them respond to the RTIs.

Does anyone know the best way of asking the question on load on the lines? There must be some technical terms to get an idea on 1) how much load the tracks are designed for (speed/frequency) 2) gap between adjacent services at peak hours 3) capacity of stations to handle multiple concurrent trains.

About provision for land around some of these single line stretches - is there a unit within Sout Western Railway who keeps the land records? Can ask this unit directly, otherwise SWR PRO will waste time by simply redirecting us.

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Pranav,

I have not filed any RTI with SWR on Local Train, only enquired over the phone and  and was trying to understand how RTI's are filed with Railways.  I am ready to file  RTI with SWR  and  we need to file seperate RTI's  for the each query so that we get the reply  at the eraliest, other wise, they may use the delay tactic if  many questions are asked in single RTI application.

Following are the Questions can be asked :

1 : Railway Status on Letter from CM / Karnataka regarding the starting of Local Trains similar to Mumbai Local Trains which was forwarded in Feb'2009.

2 : For DEMU / EMEU services which are announced during budegt 2010 for differnet states,  State Govt or  Railways, who is paying the cost of Rakes for these.

3 : What is percentage of utilization of track capacity between Yelahanak to Chikballapur, Bangalore City to Bidadi, Bangalore city - Yesvanthpur - Hebbal - Anekal

I stumbled upon the Railway RTI application query. Here Railways stores the RTI applicaion with application number. Main website  is :http://rti.railnet.gov.in/default.asp  In this website, you can search the RTI application status thru : Status Of Application

RTI application need to be addressed to following officer :

Central Public Information Officer, Railway Board,  Rail Bhawan, New Delhi - 110011

All the RTI applications of Railways are  scanned in pdf format  and stored with application number. Here is the sample RTI application relating to Railway Saloons used by Mr Lalu Prasad  http://rti.railnet.gov.in/rtidata/scanned/7115.pdf   You may be knowing, last week this subject came into news with Lalu has used Saloon 370 times in his period and Mamtha has not used till  now.

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Let me merge from our comments above:

RTI to State Govt

To be asked to GoK. We will send the RTI to IDD.

Please answer the following questions regarding a proposal to run local trains on South Western Railway's broad guage tracks within Bangalore Metropolitan Region. This proposal is being referred to as Circular Rail, and is sometimes also mentioned as Commuter Rail.

1. Share details of cost sharing agreement between GoK and SWR regarding Commuter or Circular Rail  that were recently announced by a few ministers via local newspapers.
2. Which department or agency within Government of Karnataka is responsible for finalizing the project proposal.
3. Please provide the details on how the cost of the project was estimated - who did the estimate, and what are the major cost components (cost breakup)
4. Is Circular Rail different from the Commuter Rail system proposed in CTTP 2007? If yes, then share the proposed route map.
5. Details of Public Consultations done or planned for the Circular Rail Project
6. Minutes of last 3 meetings held between Government of Karnataka (Infrastructure Development Department) and South Western Railways.

RTI to South Western Railways

A) Please answer the following questions regarding a proposal to run local trains on South Western Railway's broad guage tracks within Bangalore Metropolitan Region. This proposal is being referred to as Commuter Rail, and is sometimes also mentioned as Circular Rail.

1. Share details of cost sharing agreement between GoK and SWR regarding Commuter or Circular Rail  that were recently announced by a state and central ministers via local newspapers.
2. Provide the details on how the cost of the project was estimated - who did the estimate, and what are the major cost components (cost breakup)
3. Please share the proposed route map

B) Not related to the Circular or Commuter Rail proposal directly, please provide following information regarding SWR's assets and operations in the Bangalore Metropolitan Region.

1. What is the utilization of track capacity at following stretches. a) between Yelahanaka to Chikballapur, b) Bangalore City to Bidadi, c) Yesvanthpur to Hebbal, d) Banaswadi to  Anekal, and e) Bangalore Cantt to Whitefield
2. List at least 2 stretches where SWR does not have enough land available for doubling the track between Byappanahalli and Anekal.
3. Excluding land costs, what will be the approximate cost of doubling the railway tracks between Banaswadi and Anekal at 2009 or 2010 cost levels
4. Minutes of last 5 meetings held between South Western Railways (SWR) and Government of Karnataka (GoK) to discuss Railways projects in Karnataka.
5. Alternatively, if SWR is aware of any meeting held with GoK to discuss commuter/Circular railway for Bangalore, please share minutes of the same.

Comments ASAP everyone. Will mail these RTIs during the coming week.

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 1. What is the utilization of track capacity... 

Add e) Banaswadi to Whitefield

2. ...where SWR does not have enough land available for doubling the track between Byappanahalli and Anekal.

??? why not hebbal/ to anekal

 3. ...Banaswadi and Anekal at 2009 or 2010 cost levels

Can be hebbal to Anekal to make it more accurate.

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Kindly note the following points for Railways:

@   1 : utilization of track capacity at following stretches.   c) Yesvanthpur  to Banaswadi via Hebbal  

Add following  points to this

f) Banaswadi  to Whitefield  via  Biyapanhalli  g) between  K R Puram Dodballapur via Yelahanaka 

Already you have  changed the   e) Bangalore Cantt to Whitefield   as per IDS.

Following points to be added :

With RTI for SWR :

6. Status of Binny Mill land handing over by State Govt to SWR for  Bangalore city station expansion.

7. Status of  Upgrading Biyapanhalli and Bangalore city stations as World  Class Stations  with Biyapanhalli as third terminal in Bangalore city

8. Status of Doubling of Track between Yesvanthpur to Yelahanak and Yelahanka to K R Puram ( budget sanctioned during Railway Budget 2009 and site survey has been completed )

9. Status of Integration at Yesvanthpur Railway Station Foot over Bridge with NAMMA METRO  Yesvanthpur Station as Promised in BMLTA meeting. 

10. Track Utilization between  Chikbanavar  to Nelamangala ( recently I have observed  Grass / small bushes have grown on the track which was commissioned way back Dec'2008 )

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SB - Is CRS being referred to as circular rail anywhere else other than in misleading press reports ? CTTP makes no mention of any circular rail - only commuter rail.

A question can be included, such as -- "Though CRS has been recommended in all traffic studies since 1969, there has been no move so far from the authorities. When will city residents see better commitment on this with track doubling & station construction at various intermediate city locations to run dependable trains & make CRS a success, instead of running a few scattered trains inbetween other inter-city schedules with only existing infrastructure, which is doomed to failure & will not serve much for the city ?"

You can phrase the query better !  Rest all questions seem okay to me.

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Naveen, in the recent statements in the press, the word circular rail has been used. It might be that what state government is talking about is different from what is proposed in CTTP. It will be best to ask this clarification too in the RTIs.

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http://praja.in/en/~bangalore/blog/murali772/2009/01/25/drms-presentation-regarding-commuter-rail-etc
 

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In my opinion, let us ask only what is very directly related to CRS. Going by that, let me edit your added questions a bit for the RTI to SWR.

Additional questions to add to the SWR list (in my comment above)

1. Status of Binny Mill land handing over by State Govt to SWR for  Bangalore city station expansion.
2. Status on upgrading Byappanhalli as World  Class Stations  and the third terminal in Bangalore city
3. Status of Doubling of Track between Yesvanthpur to Yelahanka and Yelahanka to K R Puram (budget was sanctioned during Railway Budget 2009 and site survey has been completed )
4. Track Utilization between  Chikbanavar  to Nelamangala (this was commissioned way back Dec 2008)

Will make other edits also pointed out by IDS.

In case of no more comments, will close this task, and post a new task with RTI documents attached.

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RTI to State Govt :

We need to add the following points for RTI to State Govt. :

1. Acquistion of Binny Mills Land for Bangalore City Station Or Question can be Status of Handing of Binny Mills land to SWR 

2. Status of  handing over of land at NGEF in order to develop the Baiyappanahalli Railway Station and Integrating with METRO

2. Report status of  Feasibilty for Taking up Commuter Rail Services connecting all peripheral meto stations within 60 days by IDD  as per the Proceeding of the 6th Meeting of the BMLTA held on 18th Nov'2009

3. Status of Traffic Study in respect Yesvanthpur to Devanahalli

4. Status of running a CRS between  Bangalore city to Baiyyapanahalli  via Lottegollahalli

Above points were  discussed in BMLTA meetings, IDD is responsible  for Implimentaion and are very essential  for CRS and METRO integration

http://www.bmlta.org/BMLTA/subcommittees

Also let us know  how we can contribute the amount needed /  to be pooled for this RTI activity. 

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sanjay/SB and others,

Here is the information giving instructions on how to file the RTI applications with Bangalore DRM of SWR.

http://203.176.113.182/SWR/bact.jsp

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Finally people are applying their minds analytically to the problems. 

Comparing the frequency of trains in Mumbai and New Delhi, he says that at Churchgate, Mumbai, four platforms handle 436 trains, while New Delhi station handles 296 trains daily with 16 platforms.

“In contrast, the Bangalore City station handles only 125 trains on its 10 platforms daily. “Unlike New Delhi, the interconnectivity between six main lines and all the platforms at the City station is not proper. For example, trains in Yeshwantpur section can only stop at platforms eight, nine and 10"...

Source

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Very true that SWR has lot more to do to match Mumabi or Delhi. My own hunch is that, railways in general can increase their services many fold just by increasing the platforms on all sections.

Wish entities like CiSTUP does some stoudy on this and publish it.

State of SWR is there in those RTI replies

http://praja.in/en/blog/kbsyed61/2011/05/14/state-south-western-railways

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Its good that more demand is made for Commuter Rail for Bangalore,  Its nice to  see that Mr Satinder Pal Chopra making good efforts on this.

During Nov'2010, Praja did presentation on Platfrom utilization by comparing with Vijayawada, Secunderabad, Yesavantpur, Pune &  Kachigudda  Vs Bangalore city.

It came out that Bangalore city worst in handling 15 Trains per day per  Platform, where as  Kachigudda handling 24 Trains per day per Platform.  When this was shown to SWR, they accepted and came with same answer that  Platforms are used for pit lines and for washing the rakes instead for passengers boarding. 

Main reason for Bangalore city station is all trains are terminating at city only instead of going thru, only few trains are going towards Mysore and trains coming from mysore all are getting terminated at city station, so in over all making its most in-efficient station with 10 platfroms with 18 tracks crossing the station.

We had suggested to extend the Bangarpet to Bangalore shuttel services upto Bidadi so that city station can  handel more  commuter trains on this segment,  it looks like GoK does not want the bangarpet to Bangalore to be extended upto Bidadi for different reasons.

Even Yesvantpur  station has been made junction artifically  by SWR and making it inefficient.  Trains coming from City station and going towards Tumkur are made to go thru' PF 1, 2 &  3  and  they need to cross the trains orginating from PF-4,5 & 6 which are going towards  Banaswadi, Yelahanaka.   What actually should be is : All Trains going towards Tumkur should be made to pass thru'  using Tracks of PF 4,5 & 6 and all trains going towards  Yelahanka, Banaswadi should originate or pass thru' PF 1, 2 & 3 only.

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