NEW DELHI, Feb 26 — Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar’s second Railway Budget held a mixed bag for the North-East. At least five new trains being proposed to be introduced besides commissioning of the Rangiya Rail Division next month. The budgetary proposals evoked mixed reactions from MPs belonging to the North-East. But they admitted in the same breath that Nitish Kumar’s Budget is at least better than Mamata Banerjee’s Budget. The new trains promised to be introduced included Tinsukia-Mariani Express, a weekly Puri-Guwahati via Asansol, Dibrugarh-Amritsar via Varanasi and Lucknow also a weekly, Guwahati-Secunderabad via Vijaywada weekly and Okha-Guwahati via Varanasi and Patna, Sri Kumar announced.
The Railway Budget has also proposed to increase the frequencies of few selected trains including 5631/5632 Guwahati-Jodhpur and Bikaner Express from one day to twice a week service. Perhaps the best news for the region is that the fare of Delhi-Guwahati Rajdhani Express in the AC three tier class remained unchanged, while fare of AC Two and AC First classes have been slashed by Rs 380 and Rs 324 respectively. The fare of the three classes are AC three tier (Rs 1516), Two Tier (Rs 2426) and First Class (Rs 4690).
The passengers travelling from Dibrugarh to New Delhi in Rajdhani Express would have even more reasons to smile as fare of AC three tier has been decreased by 12 percent and a one-way journey to the Capital would now cost Rs 1721 as against Rs 1951 currently being charged. The fare of AC Two Tier and First Class has been slashed by Rs 423 and Rs 899 respectively.
Meanwhile, the Railway Minister announced that unreserved ticketing system would introduced on North East Frontier Railway along with other zones. In addition to the five weekly Express trains including one that runs to Guwahati, more of such trains would introduced including one connecting Guwahati and New Delhi. Sri Kumar also announced that eight new divisions including the Rangiya Division would be operationalised from April 1. Officers on Special Duty (OSDs) in the rank of General Managers and Divisional Railway Managers (DRMs) to head these new zones and divisions respectively are already in position, he added.
“As committed in my last budget speech, work has already commenced on three mega bridges including Bogibeel bridge over river Brahmaputra and two over Ganga,” the Railway Minister said. The Budget also proposes to allocate Rs 7.5 crore for Lumding-Silchar gauge conversion project. The project that is estimated to cost Rs 14,91,69 lakh has balance work worth Rs 12,232 crore remaining, according to the latest projections. The Budget has also earmarked Rs 1 crore of the Katakhal-Bhairabi project. A road overbridge in Bongaigaon has been proposed to be constructed at a cost of Rs 5 crore. The Maligaon stadium is set for improvement with hostel facilities as the Budget has proposed allocation of Rs 40.3 lakh. The project is estimated to cost Rs 7.65 crore.