Mahant demands expansion of rail services in CG

Raipur, January 04, 2013

 Union minister of state for agriculture and food processing industry Charandas Mahant on Thursday met Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and demanded expansion of rail services in Chhattisgarh.
 

Mahant pointed that despite South East Central Railway (SECR) headquartered at Bilaspur being the highest revenue generating zone for Railways and Chhattisgarh being ninth largest state in the country in terms of area, the rail tacks in the region was merely 1200 km, i.e. less than 0.01 km per square kilometre.

He demanded direct train services from Korba and Koria districts to New Delhi, an Intercity express from Raipur to Ambikapur and a duranto (long-distance train) from Bilaspur to Mumbai.

He demanded commencement of Shatabdi express from Korba to Nagpur and increase in number of bogies in passenger trains. 

He further requested the Railway minister to increase the frequencies of Korba- Thiruvananthapuram express, Bilaspur-Chennai express, Bilaspur-Pune express, Durg-Jaipur express and Korba-Yashwantpur express from once in a week to at least thrice in a week. 

He also urged Bansal to link to extreme tribal areas through rail line by beginning new train from Jagdalpur to Ambikapur for convenience of poor tribal people. 

He asked requested Bansal to approve new rail tracks in Barvadih (Ambikapur) and Lohardagga (Korba) the survey of which has been done. 

He said rail terminal services in Dongargarh, Jagdalpur and Ambikapur should be increased. 

Manaht said the increase rail services would benefit large number of people from north India, West Bengal and south India who frequently travel to Chhattisgarh pertaining to their job or business. 

Mahant informed that Bansal had assured him of considering his demands in next rail budget. On the occasion, Mahant also invited Bansal to visit Chhattisgarh.