Title - Give land, will expedite work on rail track: Union minister

Solan: Investors in the state, wanting to connect the state’s industrial areas by railways, have seen a ray of hope, with the Union Railways Minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal, assuring a delegation of industrialists that if the state government provided land for laying the track they would expedite the work.The officials of the railways ministry, however, suggested that the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh area could be connected with railways from the proposed Bhanupali-Beri-Bilaspur line via Bharatgarh-Nalagarh-Baddi, provided the state government provided free-of-cost land for the venture.The minister, while viewing this as a workable proposal, spoke to Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and a written proposal for the same would now be sent to the Ministry of Railways to explore its feasibility.A delegation of the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh Industries Association, led by its president Arun Rawat, also impressed upon the minister the need of railway connectivity for the industrial area and the potential of prospect-ive revenue to the  railways through freight carriage besides the passenger movement.