CHENNAI: Three new railway line projects in Tamil Nadu — Tindivanam-Tiruvannamalai, Attipattu-Puttur, and Chennai-Cuddalore — have been kept in abeyance, while the Madurai-Thoothukudi line via Aruppukkottai, and the Erode-Palani line have been frozen.

In his RTI reply to Naveen B, the Chief Administrative Officer of the Construction department, J Kumarasubramanian, stated, “Tindivanam-Tiruvannamalai project is kept in abeyance for now. The Railway Board has asked us to submit a detailed project report (DPR). Sriperumbudur-Guduvancheri new line DPR is under process.

Madurai-Thoothukudi is proposed to be frozen for now due to low freight prospects. The project of Madurai-Thoothukudi via Aruppukkottai (143.5 km) new line is also proposed for freezing. Milavittan-Melamarudur (18-km stretch) works are completed. Erode-Palani new line project has also been frozen by the Railway Board.”

For the Tiruvannamalai-Tindivanam new line, the state government had approved the acquisition of 229.23 hectares of land in 2011.

An earlier RTI reply to activist Dayanand Krishnan said that up to March 2025, an amount of Rs 72.875 crore was spent on the Tiruvannamalai-Tindivanam line, Rs 1.48 crore on the Erode-Palani line, Rs 4.16 crore on the Chennai-Cuddalore line, Rs 3.34 crore on the Attipattu-Puttur line, and Rs 1.24 crore on the Sriperumbudur-Guduvancheri line.

“More train services are required to Tiruvannamalai since it is a pilgrimage site. Southern Railway should initiate completing the projects that are pending and have a high chance of meeting passenger demands on this route. The government always raises land acquisition as an issue, but when the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) can do it and complete its projects, why is the Railways failing? We need a coordinating agency between the Railways and the State government for the land acquisition,” said Dayanand Krishnan.

Chief Minister MK Stalin had earlier presented a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, underscoring the delay in executing these railway projects and asking the centre for renewed action to implement these projects.