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A busy Tatanagar station on Tuesday. (Bhola Prasad)
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Pawan Kumar Bansal’s maiden Railway Budget has come as a huge disappointment for Chakradharpur, the highest revenue earning railway division in the country as far as freight is concerned.
Neither was any new train announced nor was there any word about increasing passenger amenities and developing infrastructure in the important division under South Eastern Railway (SER).
In last year’s budget, two new trains had been announced — Barbil-Chakradharpur Intercity Express (daily) and Santragachi-Ajmer Express (weekly). While the latter has been already introduced, the Intercity is yet to be launched.
Trade bodies and passenger associations felt that Chakradharpur, which rakes in an annual revenue of over Rs 5,000 crore, had been handed a raw deal.
“Chakradharpur was not given a single new train. We were expecting at least some in the division. It is also surprising that there was no mention of the ambitious Kandra-Namkum project, which aims at reducing travelling time between Jamshedpur and Ranchi,” said S.P. Trivedi, an executive member of Chotanagpur Passenger Association.
Members of Singhbhum Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), the largest trade outfit of Kolhan region, were unhappy too as their demands had been overlooked.
“We had sought increase in the frequency of the Puri-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, which plies via Tatanagar, and the Tata-Yeshwantpur Express. In our wish list to the railway minister, we had also demanded direct trains between Tatanagar and Hyderabad and Tatanagar and Jaipur, as many traders travel to the pink city,” said Suresh Sonthalia, vice-president of SCCI and a member of the Zonal Railway Users’ Consultative Committee (ZRUCC).
The Chaibasa Chamber of Commerce and Industry was also not happy. “We were hoping for a new MEMU train between Barbil and Tatanagar,” said a senior functionary. The Chaibasa Chamber of Commerce and Industry had sought a Janshatabdi between Barbil and Howrah in the morning and extension of Tata-Badampahar passenger up to Gua in West Singhbhum.
The Adityapur Small Industries Association (ASIA) said it did not mind the increase in supplementary charges if it was accompanied by visible improvement in passenger amenities. But, the industry body objected to the hike of five per cent in freight charges. “The hike in freight charges would escalate prices of all commodities,” said R.K. Sinha, president of ASIA. He also termed the budget “unimpressive”.
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