GUWAHATI: The Union Minister of State of Railways, Rajen Gohain flagged off the 12503/12504 Agartala – Bangalore Cantonment Weekly Humsafar Express at ceremonial function held at Agartala railway station on Friday.
Addressing the gathering, Rajen Gohain said that railway infrastructure development in Northeastern region had got an impetuous in the last three years and all the projects are progressing in full steam. He said, problems like shortage of funds had been taken care of and there are a lot of new plans for the region.
Gohain said, connectivity of the region was priority of the present government and railway was executing several projects for bringing in better connectivity and economic development for the region. Speaking at the function, the Minister said that Railway Ministry had decided to introduce DEMU train in Tripura soon. He also promised to look into possibility of increasing frequency of the Agartala – Anand Vihar (New Delhi) Rajdhani Express and introduction of a train connecting Tripura with Jharkhand.
Tripura’s Minister of Transport, Power, Urban Development, Rural Development (Panchayat) Manik Dey, Lok Sabha MP, Sankar Prasad Datta, Member of Tripura Legislative Assembly, Dilip Sarkar, General Manager, N. F. Railway Chahatey Ram, General Manager, N. F. Railway Construction, M. K. Prasad, senior railway officials and other state government officials were present at the inaugural ceremony besides hundreds of eager audience.
The General Manager, N. F. Railway, Chahatey Ram reiterated Indian Railway’s commitment for development of the northeastern region and for providing better service. He said the new Humsafar Express flagged off had state-of-the-art facilities like GPS-based passenger information system, Passenger announcement system, fire and smoke detection and suppression system, CCTVs, comfortable seats, mobile and laptop charging points, integrated Braille display, fire retardant curtains and other facilities. The train would be fully air-conditioned and would have dynamic fare structure. The Base fare shall be slightly higher than the normal base fare of AC-3 tier superfast Mail/Express trains, he said. The Agartala –Bangalore Cantt. Humsafar Express will cover 3542 Kms. Distance in 64 hours and will having 28 stoppage en-route.
Regular service of the Humsafar Express inaugurated today will commence from Agartala from January 9 next. It will be initially a weekly service leaving Agartala on every Tuesday at 05.00 A.M. reaching Bangalore Cantt. at 21.15 hours of Thursday. Form Bangalore Cantt. the regular service will commence from January 12. It will leave Bangalore on every Friday at 10.15 A.M. to reach Agartala at 03.45 hours on Monday.
Earlier in the day, the Hon’ble Minister had flagged off the 1st passenger train on newly-commissioned Udaipur-Garjee section of the Agartala- Udaipur-Sabroom new BG line at a ceremonial function held at Udaipur.
Delivering the welcome address, the General Manager of N. F. Railway Construction, M. K. Prasad said that the Garjee to Belonia section of the Agartala- Udaipur-Sabroom new BG line would be commissioned by the end of this year. Tripura Forest, Rural Dev and Election Minister Naresh Chandra Jamatia, Members of Tripura Legislative Assembly, Madhab Chandra Saha, Pranajit Singha Roy and Lok Sabha MP Shri Sankar Prasad Datta were present at the function attended by hundreds of enthusiastic audience.