Arup Roy, Minister, Department of Cooperation, Govt. of West Bengal, Pradip Bhattacharya, MP (Rajya Sabha), Prasun Banerjee, MP (Lok Sabha) and Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Minister of State, Department of Sports & Youth Affairs, Govt of West Bengal, were also present on the occasion.
Advertisement
Unable to see his sister in pain, Kunal sought help from the Railway Minister by tweeting him the details.
Prabhu said “we have taken steps to fulfill all our budget promises”.
“The idea is to create a Integrated transport system for the city of Kolkata”, he noted.
The joint venture is called SAIL-RITES Bengal Wagon Industry Pvt Ltd. It has signed an agreement for an assured offtake with the railway ministry in November 2015. The central team also produced documents to show the Mamata Banerjee administration that the Modi government at the Centre is not ignoring Bengal’s interests. We now have to make sure that it becomes an economic center again. The Minister said transportation sector will bring next wave of investment after telecom and power. Presently, the Railway Protection Force – that secures railway property – is under the Railway Ministry. He said Railways is working to have a freight handling capacity of 1.5 to 2 billion tonne. Railways had undertaken trial of Talgo trains for semi speed trains that will increase speed to 200 km against average of 130 km per hour. The Indian economy, especially the West Bengal economy, will get a boost from this plan.
The Railways minister inaugurated several projects for Eastern Railway, South Eastern Railway and the Metro Railway during his visit here.
Indian Railways is banking on joint ventures with state governments to meet its ambitious target of laying down tracks that will sustain high economic growth.
“Railways is also working on speed enhancement in existing trains and new high speed infrastructure”, he said.
“This work is challenging looking at the country’s population and increasing dependence on railways”, Prabhu said. “We have to sort out some issues, but wherever there is a serious problem like those afflicting the Metro, and other pending work, we can take care of them”. We are focusing on the customer service, whether it is passengers or goods.
Advertisement
“It will have a positive impact on the economy and will also increase business”. Originally, the service was meant to have been introduced on trains. “Though many are saying that things have improved a lot, I am not happy because we have to go a long long way”, Prabhu said.
