Howrah, Jan 9: Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday described the Kolkata-New Delhi railway corridor as the most “congested” in the country and said collaboration with several countries is being done to revamp the network.
“Kolkata-New Delhi corridor is the most congested area. We have built bridges, laid new tracks to reduce the congestion which has been affecting punctuality of trains. But in some zones, the punctuality is around 90-95 per cent,” Prabhu said after flagging off new trains here at the Howrah station.
The Railways have gone for tie-ups with many countries to make travelling in trains more safe and secure, he said.
“Indian Railways have a collaboration with Japan to revamp the entire network to help address the congestion as well as improving the operation so as to bring it to the global standard,” the Union Minister said.
He also praised the achievements of the Railways in the last one year and urged state governments and local administrations to come forth and help them.
“Quite a lot has been achieved in the last one year.. But we have to address the long backlog of years of inaction,” Prabhu said.
Notably, India-Japan has entered into an MoU to build a bullet train network in the country. India’s first bullet train network is scheduled to come up between Mumbai and Ahmedabad at a cost of Rs 98,000 crore.
Prabhu said he was also hopeful that the East-West Metro would be operational by June 2018.
“The road blocks for the East-West Metro project have been addressed and it can be ready within two-and-half year’s time. Hopefully we will be able to run trains by June 2018,” Prabhu said.
The Railway minister also announced Green Energy initiatives in stations and rakes of Metro Railway to reduce carbon footprint for a cleaner environment.
On the occasion, Prabhu announced the commencement of work of lowering of tunnel boring machine and recommencement of casting of tunnel segments at the Howrah Maidan for the East-West Metro project.
Earlier, he flagged off three new trains —Howrah-Yesvantpur Weekly AC Express, Howrah-Pune Suvidha AC Express and Panskura-Digha EMU train services – of South Eastern Railway besides five new train services and extension of four existing local trains.
The Railway Minister also launched a mobile app for paperless ticketing system for the suburban services of Eastern Railway and also inaugurated the display of the first AC Electric Locomotive at the Regional Rail Museum at Howrah.
