Bhubaneswar, July 25: The East Coast Railway (ECoR) authorities have decided to extend the Bhubaneswar-Jaipur Weekly Superfast Express to Puri from August 3 to provide more convenience to passengers and connect the places of tourism.

An ECoR release here said, after the extension to Puri, the train would run as 8473/8474 Puri-Jaipur-Puri express instead of 2983/2984 Bhubaneswar-Jaipur-Bhubaneswar express. It would leave Puri on every Wednesday instead of Bhubaneswar on every Monday.

The ECoR has requested the passengers who have booked tickets for Bhubaneswar-Jaipur Express to cancel their tickets and get a full refund since the train will not leave from Bhubaneswar.

In order to cater to the extra rush of passengers, ECoR has decided to augment the 2801 Puri-New Delhi Purrussottam Express with two extra sleeper-class coaches from July 22 to July 31.

Similarly, the 2815 Puri-New Delhi Superfast, the 8475 Neelachal Express, the 8401/8403 Puri-Okha, the Puri-Ahmedabad Express, have been augmented with one sleeper class each between this period.

In the recently-concluded Rath Yatra festival, the Khurda Road division of ECoR registered a record earning of over Rs 48.38 lakh from ticket sales.

The railways registered a 30.37 per cent increase in the number of passengers during this year?s festival.