RailEnquiry

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday announced that the State Government would share 50 per cent of the Rs. 2515 crore required for the implementation of three railway line projects announced in the last Railways budget.

According to an official release here, Mr. Hooda made the announcement while addressing a rally at Hansi where he responded to a suggestion made by Union Railways Minister Mallikarjun Kharge at the same venue that the three important projects to construct rail lines would be taken up on a priority basis provided the State Government agreed to bear half the cost.

The rally was organised to mark the foundation stone laying ceremony of Hansi-Meham-Rohtak rail line and four-laning of Hisar-Hansi-Meham-Rohtak section of National Highway No. 10. Mr Hooda's announcement cleared the early beginning of Delhi-Sohna-Nuh-Ferozpur Jhirka-Alwar, Hisar-Agroha-Fatehabad-Sirsa and Yamunanagar-Sadhora-Naraingarh-Chandigarh rail lines that would run 104 km, 93 km and 91 km respectively.

While Mr. Kharge appreciated the State Government’s initiative of contributing 50 per cent share, he assured personal intervention for expeditious planning and implementation of these rail projects. Responding to a demand by MP, Deepender Singh Hooda, the minister also announced that Delhi-Ludhiana Shatabdi would run on all seven days of the week and would also halt at Jind.

Heeding to another request by the MP from Sirsa, Ashok Tanwar, the Union Surface Transport minister, Oscar Fernandes announced to sanction a railway over-bridge at Dabwali that would cost 37 crore.

The Chief Minister in his address said that the three rail line projects were long pending demands of the State. He even recalled raising the issue in Parliament in 1991, when he was an MP from the State. He said that the projects would not only reduce the travel time to and from Delhi, they would usher in a new era of development in the concerned districts.

Mr. Hooda said that during the last eight years when he was at the helm, the State government had constructed 32 RoBs, while work on another 37 was in progress. He recalled that only 16 RoBs were constructed in Haryana during the previous 40 years, while not a single inch of rail line was laid during the INLD-BJP regimes.