No hike in passenger fares, freights; 12 non-stop trains

New Delhi, Jul 3:In a populist Railway budget, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee today left unchanged passenger fares and freight tariffs, announced 57 new trains, and for the first time introduced 12 point to point non-stop trains to ply between important stations and launched a new scheme 'Izzat' for travel by unorganised class.
Ms Banerjee followed the footsteps of her predecessor Lalu Prasad in taking recourse to populist measures not only by refraining from hiking passenger or freight tariffs, but also launching more facilities for the common man, pleasing the community of journalists by extending concessional rail travel and taking special care for the poor, ladies and youth.

She said the Railways will come out with a 'White Paper' indicating its present organisational, operational and financial status, based on its performance in the last five years, the period during which Mr Lalu Prasad was at the helm.

The other measures in the budget include developing 50 stations to world class level, upgrading 375 stations as 'Adarsh' stations with basic facilities like drinking water, adequate toilets and ladies dormitories, and making available computerised tickets from 5,000 post offices as well as mobile ticketting service vans.

The non-stop train services to be called 'Duranto' will operate on such routes as New Delhi-Jammu Tawi (tri-weekly), Howrah-Mumbai (AC, bi-weekly), Mumbai-Ahmedabad (AC, tri-weekly)Chennai-Delhi (bi-weekly), New Delhi-Lucknow (tri-weekly), Delhi-Pune (AC, bi-weekly), Howrah-Delhi (biweekly), New Delhi-Allahabad (tri-weekly), Sealdah-New Delhi(bi-weekly), Kolkata-Amritsar (bi-weekly), Bhubaneswar-Delhi (weekly) and Ernakulam-Delhi (weekly).

The popular tatkal scheme has been revised to make it friendly, with the advance booking period being reduced from five days to two days. The minimum charge has been brought down to Rs 100.

The other passenger friendly measures include extensive availability of janata khaana, national and regional cuisines.

'Only Ladies' EMU trains in Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata during office rush hours and 'Yuva' trains for the younger generation (low cost air conditioned with seated accomodation) are to be introduced. (UNI)