Residents seek better amenities in trains, at rly stations

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 24

The residents are demanding better amenities in trains and at the local railway station ahead of the railway Budget, besides end to unscheduled stoppages on the city’s outskirts and other places.

A local resident Vidyasagar has urged the government to hold back from announcing fresh projects. He said the government should first ensure that projects announced in earlier Budgets were finished.

In all, there are six platforms (No. 1, 1-A, 2, 3, 4, 5) at the local railway station, which are inadequate to handle arrival and departure of high number of trains.

Vidyasagar said, “As Amritsar is a border district, a majority of trains either arrive or depart in the morning or evening. For the past several decades, no new platform has been built at the railway station, but many new trains have been started and fresh destinations have been linked to the border town.”

He said there was an urgent need to set up more toilets at the railway station. Due to absence of adequate number of washrooms commuters urinated in the open at the exit gate of the parking lot. The Railways must expedite repair of the portion of the local railway station declared unsafe, he added.

One of the major demands, put forth by the residents is of ensuring key rail links within the state. A devotee, Harpinder Singh Walia, said so far all the three Takhts in Punjab, including Akal Takht, Keshgarh (Anandpur Sahib) and Damdama Sahib (Bathinda), had no rail connectivity with the city. Since the Akali Dal was a coalition partner with the NDA government at the Centre, it must utilise its resources to achieve this objective, he added. He said these rail links would also connect Majha to Malwa.

A large number of devotees visited the holy city from across the country and the world to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple and Akal Takht, he added. He said, “However, they suffer hardship as there is no rail connectivity to other two religious Takhts in the state.”

Another city resident, Dr AL Adlakha, said after a long gap a super-fast train was started between Amritsar and Chandigarh. However, till now there was no rail connectivity with Himachal Pradesh from Punjab barring Pathankot, he added. He said extension of Amritsar-Chandigarh superfast train to Kalka could connect the state to Himachal Pradesh as one could board another train from Kalka to Shimla.

The Railways must utilise its property optimally to augment its income, he added. He said total cleanliness in trains and on platforms must be ensured when the Railways was charging high passenger fares.

He recalled that a rail link between Amritsar and Ferozepur via Tarn Taran-Mahalam was announced in the railway Budget two years ago. However, no progress had been made on the route, he added. He said if the rail link between these two districts was made operational it would reduce the distance between Ferozepur and Amritsar from the present 196 km by road to 82 km by train.

He said from a business point of view, it would give a tremendous boost to enterprise as traders who have to incur less transportation expenses. The rail link could be extended to the western parts of the country, including Mumbai and Gujarat. It would shorten the distance between the holy city and Mumbai by 240 km. Even the distance between Jammu and Mumbai would reduce by 267 km, he added. He said the same rail link could further go up to Gujarat, which had several sea ports.