Title - Residents hopeful from railway minister Pawan Bansal’s maiden visit

BARNALA: Thanks to his upcoming first visit as union railway minister to the native place, a small railway station of Tapa is getting refurbished with dozens of workers making extra efforts even at odd hours.The railway authorities is not leaving any stone unturned to get the ire of the minister when he pays visit to the motherland.Pawan Kumar Bansal, is going to visit his native place on Sunday and the railway authorities are going out of their way to make sure that everything is top notch at the station.Apart from Tapa, the minister will also visit the nearby district headquarter of Barnala and Barnala railway station authorities has put all its energies to make the station look neater and cleaner, otherwise utter pale.The local residents too are elated over the proposed visit of Bansal, his first after taking charge of railway ministry more than a month back. The various trade- industry organizations, NGOs are ready with demand charters.The refurbishing of the otherwise neglected Bathinda-Ambala section is high on the charter of every organization."Going by railway minister's proposed visit we are in the job to make the place presentable and upgrade the infrastructure", said Tapa railway station master, Shashi Bhushan. He said that all the senior railway officers including Ambala DRM, Pardeep Kumar has already visited twice in only few days to take stock of preparations. Preparations are at full swing for minister's visit, said railway authorities at Barnala.

"We are going to demand upgraded infrastructure and adding of more trains to Delhi, Hardwar on the otherwise neglected section", said Tapa resident Mithan Lal Bansal and Barnala resident Sunil Kumar, who are closely related to railway minister. It is for more than three decades that any railway minister is from North that too from our own place and we want maximum from him to upgrade the railways in this remote area, they said.

Pawan Bansal's principal secretary, Rahul Bhandari, talking to TOI over phone from Delhi said "the minister is working on the demands of the area to upgrade the facilities. He will ensure that he manages to meet the demands".