An employee leaves the Kanchrapara workshop, face smeared with the celebratory abir. (Pradip Biswas)

Kanchrapara (North 24-Parganas), July 3: Whoops of joy went up in the Kanchrapara workshop a couple of minutes past noon.

It almost seemed the re- turn of high noon for the foremen and mechanics watching Mamata Banerjee’s railway budget on a small TV set.

She had just announced a lifeline for the ailing workshop where 11,700 now work — it would be home to a coach factory.

It’s not that the employees and the over 3 lakh citizens in the 26 wards of Kanchrapara municipality hadn’t expected anything. But this seemed to have put them on the fast track to a near-certain bounty.

“What she has announced is like a lifeline for this 145-year-old workshop dying a slow death,” said foreman Prabir Das, a member of the Eastern Railway Men’s Union, affiliated to the Congress, as he smeared colleagues with green abir.

Cries of “Didi zindabad” rent the air, rising over the rattle of the machines. All of a sudden, Kanchrapara was swept up in a promised windfall.

Chandana Sarkar, among the last to have got jobs here, way back in 1984, said: “I am not from the CPM or Trinamul. The coach factory will mean jobs not only for the youth of Kanchrapara but also for areas within 50km.”

The workshop’s operations are now limited to repairing locomotives and EMUs (suburban electric trains).

As the news spread, women and children streamed out of homes and headed towards the sprawling workshop. By 5pm, over 500 people had gathered. “In the 1960s, one person from every house here was in the workshop. Now, that is true for barely 30 per cent of the families. But with the factory, more will be recruited and more households will benefit,” said Abhas Kumar Singh, who retired as a unit head.