Until now, the project, which has received a funding of Rp126 billion from the state budget, is still not complete due to problems faced in clearing the 4.2-kilometer land in the Duku Station area.
"We are speeding up the development of the railway project that will provide connectivity to the airport. We have allocated Rp70 billion funds to build the rail project," Bambang noted here on Wednesday.
He was optimistic that the land clearing work can be completed in 2014, and the trains can start shuttling passengers to the airport by 2015.
The Deputy Minister also hopes that the coordination between the West Sumatra Governor and Padang Pariaman Regent can help to resolve the land clearing problem in a quick and efficient manner.
The funds from the regional budget of the West Sumatra Province are being used for the land clearing effort.
Director of Train Transportation and Traffic in the Ministry Hanggoro Budi Wiryawan emphasized that the land clearing work is forecast to be completed by July 2014.
"We hope that the land clearing will be accomplished by July, and the development work will finish by December," he explained.
The train carriages for transporting the passengers from the airport to the train station are ready for operations.
The train carriages are painted in white and decorated with traditional arts of Minangkabau.
The official entourage has already taken a test ride on the train from Padang to Duku Station.
The train can transport 100 passengers from Padang city to the Minangkabau Airport and the journey is expected to take only 30 minutes.
"We will work on increasing the train speed later on. We also plan to add four train cars from Medan in North Sumatra," Hanggoro added.
EDITED BY INE
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Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2014
