New Delhi : Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal Tuesday announced 106 new trains, including 67 express trains and 26 passenger trains, in the railway budget for 2013-14.
Some of the new express trains are between Ahmedabad and Jodhpur, Ajni (Nagpur) and Lokmanya Tilak (Mumbai), Amritsar and Lalkuan (Nainital), Bandra Terminus (Mumbai) and Ramnagar (Uttarkhand) and Bandra and Jaisalmer.
The major passenger trains include services between Bathinda and Dhuri (Punjab), Bikaner and Ratangarh (Rajasthan), Bhavnagar and Palitana (Gujarat), Bhavnagar and Surendranagar (Gujarat) and Bareilly and Lalkuan (UP).
The minister further said five mainline electrical multiple unit (MEMU) and eight diesel multiple unit (DEMU) commuter passenger service will be started.
In addition, 57 trains will be extended and the frequency of 24 services would be increased, the minister said.
The minister said railways remained the single most important catalyst in India’s growth story and were a vital organisation integrating the nation from Baramulla in the North to Kanyakumari in the South, and from Dwarka in the West to Ledo in the East.
“Negotiating and overcoming all the difficulties, the vast railway family is determined to play its historic role as a national carrier with resolute sincerity of purpose and strive to be a veritable vehicle of inclusive growth,” Bansal said in his budget speech in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.
“A detailed exercise has been carried out to assess availability of track capacity, terminal facilities and maintenance infrastructure within the available resources.”
India’s railroad network, ranked among the top five in the world, is spread over 64,000 km with 7,083 stations. It ferries 23 million travellers and 2.65 million tonnes of goods daily on 12,000 passenger and 7,000 freight trains.