Title - Many trains announced in last budget yet to chug off

JAIPUR: In the last year's rail budget, presented by Dinesh Trivedi, 15 mail/superfast trains were announced for the North Western Railway. Out of them five trains are yet to be started while all the four announced passenger trains are on the tracks. A few trains for which Trivedi had increased the frequency are also yet to start their new innings.In fact, the frequent change of rail ministers only aggravated the situation. After Trivedi presented his budget, he tendered his resignation. In the past one year, Mukul Roy, CP Joshi and now Pawan Kumar Bansal became railway ministers.The only satisfactory thing for the passengers is that NWR managed to construct 46 railway under bridges (RUB) while the work for four railway over bridges (ROB) started. Construction of these bridges is necessary to avert accidents at manned and unmanned crossings.According to senior officers of NWR, Rs 304 crore were sanctioned for construction of ROBs and RUBs in the state as the railway headquarters is aiming to convert all the manned and unmanned crossings into RUBs and ROBs. "The work for these bridges is going on a fast pace. Till date, 46 RUBs have been constructed and by the end this financial year we are aiming to take this figure to 70," said Tarun Jain, chief public relations officer, NWR.

On the number of trains announced in the last year's budget but yet to begin, Jain said, "the trains include Ahmedabad-Ajmer intercity, Bikaner-Puri Express, Jaipur - Secunderabad, Kota-Hanumangarh and Darbhanga - Ajmer. Hopefully these trains will chug off before the end of the financial year."

Likewise, increasing the frequency of Sriganganagar-Nanded Express, a pilgrimage train, is yet to be done. "It was proposed to make this train a tri-weekly instead of weekly," said an officer.

The other major announcement of a feasibility report for a bullet corridor between Delhi - Jaipur - Ajmer - Jodhpur could not be pursued till date.

There was another announcement about installing bio-toilets in some of the trains. Now some trains likeJaipur -Bandra and Aravali Express have these toilets.

The work for onboard housekeeping and cleaning of train coaches is on at Jodhpur and Jaipur railway stations. "Nearly 27 trains now have onboard housekeeping. While 30 trains passing through Jaipur are cleaned here, 36 passing through Jodhpur are cleaned in Jodhpur," said a senior officer.

Unekpt promises

Trains announced last year but yet to begin

Ahmedabad - Ajmer (intercity)

Bikaner - Puri (superfast)

Jaipur - Secundarabad (superfast)

Kota - Hanumangarh (mail)

Darbhanga - Ajmer (superfast)

Awaiting frequency increase

Sriganganagar - Nanded (Weekly to tri-weekly)

Awaiting extension

Kolkata -Ajmer train yet to be extended to Ahmedabad via Abu Road

Works undertaken to execute the proposals of budget 2012-13

46 railway underbridges constructed, work for 4 overbridges commissioned

Two trains to Mumbai have bio toilets in at least 30 coaches

Status of gauge conversions announced in 2012-13 budget

Ratangarh -Sardarshahar( work in progress)

Hanumangarh - Sriganganagar (work in progress)

Sikar - Loharu (work in progress)