New Delhi, February 26
North India is one of the major beneficiaries of the Railway Budget with the introduction of four new trains, including a parcel train between Amritsar and Mumbai, which will provide an impetus to the economic growth of the state.
Railway Minister Nitish Kumar today announced the introduction of a weekly parcel train between Amritsar and Mumbai via Delhi, which has been the long-standing demand of the industry as this would provide free movement of goods to the port city and reduce costs.
The new trains introduced are Tatanagar-Amritsar via Mughalsarai and Lucknow (biweekly); Chennai-Dehra Dun and Chandigarh via New Delhi and Saharanpur (weekly); Dibrugarh-Amritsar via Varanasi and Lucknow (weekly).
Mr Nitish Kumar also announced the extension of the Jammu Tawi-Amritsar Express to Ferozepore and doubling of the track between Rohtak-Hakhal and Hapur-Kankather.
The minister announced the laying of new lines between Una-Churaru Takrala of Nangaldam-Talwara.
Jammu-Udhampur rail link is targeted for completion by March, 2004, and rail link up to Katra is likely to be completed during 2004-05, the minister added.
Another interesting feature is the extension of the
unreserved
ticketing system to other areas of Northern Railway following the success of the pilot project in Delhi. This feature will help passengers to obtain refund from any PRS centre three hours after the train has reached its destination.Keeping in touch with the friends and family while on the move over the Net will soon be a reality with the Railways planning to introduce Internet services within the train.
The minister said as a pilot project Internet service would be provided on select trains as pilot project during the next financial year. Going by the past experience the project is most likely to be introduced in Rajdhani or Shatabdi Express and the region could be a beneficiary.
However, the initial phase of providing passenger with the cyberspace link will begin at the New Delhi railway station where the Railways as a pilot project plans to provide Internet kiosks. Success of the project will result in the extension to other parts of the country.
But, the minister indicated that the Railways would exploit the existing network to meet the bandwidth requirements of the country. He said the phase-I and phase-II network of RailTel are targeted to be completed in 2003-04 and 150 important cities and 1,500 stations are expected to be connected on optical fibre network.
This would not only enable computerised ticket reservation and cancellation from any part of the country but also allow the Railways to generate revenue from new sources.
