Modi's Kashi gets priority in Prabhu's rail budget

VARANASI: The millennia-old-city of Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is among the pilgrimage centres included in the Rail Budget 2016-17 with the provision of passenger amenities and beautification on stations.

Besides, the budget also has a mention of 'Mahamana Express' with modern refurbished coaches that was already flagged off by the PM during this visit to the city on January 22.

While presenting the railway budget on Thursday, the railway minister Suresh Prabhu proposed to take up on priority the provision of passenger amenities and beautification on stations at pilgrimage centres, including Ajmer, Amritsar, Bihar Sharif, Chengannur, Dwarka, Gaya, Haridwar, Mathura, Nagapattinam, Nanded, Nasik, Pali, Parasnath, Puri, Tirupati, Vailankanni, Varanasi and Vasco. The railway also intends to run Aastha circuit trains to connect important pilgrim centres.

Named after Banaras Hindu University's (BHU) founder Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, the tri-weekly superfast express train promises to cover a distance of 800-km between Varanasi and New Delhi in 13 hours 50 minutes.

It is the first express train running on the newly-electrified Ghaziabad-Moradabad rail route. The 140-km route was electrified in order to reduce traffic on the Delhi-Kanpur-Allahabad route.

Equipped with refurbished coaches with improved passenger amenities and aesthetically appealing furnishings, the coaches of the trains are furnished with added features like controlled discharged water tap, new toilet modules, exhaust fan, LED lights, music system, snack tables for side berth passengers and much more. The refurbishing of the coaches were done at Coach Rehabilitation Workshop in Bhopal. The train halts at Ghaziabad, Muradabad, Bareilley, Lucknow, Sultanpur and Jaunpur.

For improving punctuality there will be operations audit for Ghaziabad to Mughalsarai section. According to spokesperson of the Varanasi division or North Eastern Railway (NER) Ashok Kumar, there are proposals of electrification of Bhatni-Aurihar route at the cost of Rs 468.50 crore, doubling of Shahganj-Bhatni-Phefna route (Rs 461.42 crore), traffic facility work at Varanasi City station (Rs 9.99 crore), ROB at Kadipur-Sarnath railway crossing (Rs 17.50 crore), sub-way at a crossing in between Varanasi City and Sarnath railway stations (Rs 2.62 crore), coach maintenance facility at Ballia station (Rs 10 crore).

Besides, there are also budgetary allocations for up gradation and augmentation of passenger amenities at Varanasi City station (Rs 44.84 crore), construction of washing pit, sink line, cover shed, service building and path way at Varanasi City station (Rs 17.69 crore).