Bettiah: Radha Mohan Singh, the Union minister for agriculture and farmers' welfare, played to the gallery on Sunday as he doled out a slew of gifts for Champaran.

Singh launched the electric railway route from Motihari to Muzaffarpur as part of the concluding ceremony of the Champaran Satyagraha centenary celebrations.

State tourism minister Pramod Kumar was with Singh at Motihari, about 153km north of Patna.

The government programme bore an unmistakable mark of tribute to Mahatma Gandhi's visit to Motihari in 1917. At 3pm - the time when Gandhi had alighted at Motihari station on April 15,1917 - Union minister Singh flagged off the first electric locomotive for Muzaffarpur, the place from where Gandhi had boarded train to Motihari, after the electrification of the Motihari-Muzaffarpur railway route.

"In our bid to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi's visit, the electrification of the Motihari-Muzaffarpur route has been done. Besides, we put up an open art gallery for public viewing and a new entrance to the railway station. Union minister Radha Mohan Singh inaugurated all of this," said Birendra Kumar, the divisional commercial manager of the Samastipur railway division.

The Motihari railway station wore a festive look since Sunday morning, as people thronged to the art gallery to see rare and memorable pictures related to Mahatma Gandhi and the Independence movement.

Earlier in the day, Singh also felicitated freedom fighters and their families at a programme organised on Zila School premises.

Later in the evening, he dedicated the Charkha park at Belbanwa Chowk in town to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi's visit to Champaran.