RailEnquiry

KOLKATA: Did you try booking e-tickets on the Howrah-Puri Duronto Express for the second week of February and find that the train had vanished from the list on the website? There is reason for this. From February 8, this Duronto will be converted into a Shatabdi Express because there aren't enough passengers. In fact, this may not be the only Duronto to face the axe. Some others, along low-density routes may face the same fate due to lack of adequate patronage."The Howrah-Puri Duronto Express was never fully booked. On any given day (except during vacations), nearly 30% seats would remain vacant. On some days, 40% of the seats had no takers. After much deliberation, it was felt that the reason behind this was the lack of stoppages. Durontos run end-to-end and there may not be too many people who want to travel to Puri in a day train. It was then decided to add six stoppages. For this, the nomenclature of the train had to be changed and we converted it to a Shatabdi Express," an official said.The stoppages will be at Kharagpur, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur Keonjhar Road, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. The new Shatabdi Express will continue to start from Howrah at 2.25pm and reach Puri at 10.10pm instead of 9.45pm earlier. The Duronto used to reach Puri at 9.45pm.On its return journey, the train will start from Puri at 6am and reach Howrah at 1.45pm. The new fare structure is still being worked out. According to an official, the Shatabdi fare is likely to be slightly higher than Duronto but a comparison is not possible at the moment as there is only one route that is covered by a Duronto as well as a Shatabdi. This route is between Mumbai and Ahmedabad and the Shatabdi fare is higher.

With more stoppages being introduced, occupancy will go up once there are more stoppages and the route will become viable, believe officials. There may be many people who would want to travel to locations like Cuttack, Bhubaneswar or even Bhadrak by Shatabdi. The timings would also suit them.

"The Duronto is a good concept but they have to be run along high-density routes. There is no problem of occupancy in the Yeshwantpur, Delhi or Mumbai Durontos. Even the Sealdah-Puri Duronto, which is not a daily train, is doing quite well. This is because it runs overnight between Sealdah and Puri. It suits tourists to travel to Puri by overnight trains and reach there early in the mornings.

The Howrah-Digha Duronto is not doing too well during weekdays though. It is well patronized on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Ideally, it should only be run on these three days only.

The Howrah-Pune Duronto is also not very popular and the occupancy rate is low. Maybe, some more changes are in the offing," the official added.