Transport Minister responds to Railway Minister’s counter to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on rail projects in T.N.

A day after Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw countered Chief Minister M K Stalin contending the rail budget allocation to Tamil Nadu had increased more than 8.5 times since 2014, reaching ₹7,611 crore in 2026–27; State Transport Minister S.S. Sivasankar insisted that sufficient funds had not been allocated for acquiring lands for various railway projects.

Denying Mr Vaishnaw’s charge that the DMK government had not extended cooperation to implement the railway projects, Mr. Sivasankar claimed the former had made false statements with an aim of scoring political mileage.

Addressing journalists in Tiruchi, he contended the State government had been according top priority in implementing the railway projects. Mr Stalin had extended close cooperation to the Union government for acquiring lands for the railway projects since 2021.

“The State government was supposed to acquire 148 hectares of lands for seven schemes announced by the Railway Ministry since 2021. The State government extended administrative sanction for all of them, and had acquired 73 hectares. As far as the formation of a new broad gauge railway track between Morappur and Dharmapuri was concerned, the Railway Ministry had revised the land acquisition scheme due to the law and order issues reported in four villages,” he alleged.

Mr. Sivasankar said the Ministry was yet to release ₹298 crore towards land acquisition for the formation of the railway track between Thiruvananthapuram and Kanniyakumari. It was yet to release funds for several other projects. It was following the practice of releasing funds only in token advance. It had caused problems in completing the land acquisition process for various projects. On the other hand, the State government machinery had worked well to acquire the lands as much as possible. But, Mr. Vaishnaw had concealed the facts and accused the State of having failed to cooperate with his Ministry, he alleged.

The Transport Minister said Mr. Stalin had written a letter to the Union government, urging it to drop the proposal to build a railway track to Dhanushkodi from Rameswaram as it was coming under the ecologically sensitive zone. But, the Railway Minister had made a “false statement” that the Chief Minister had not extended cooperation to implement the scheme. It was condemnable.