Only a few of the series of promises made in last year’s railway budget were implemented during the year.
Last year, the then Union railway minister Mamata Banerjee had announced several new trains, had increased frequencies of four trains and also extended some routes. But, out of a total of 12 new measures, only five have come into being.
In the railway budget for 2011-12, Banerjee announced five new trains for Gujarat — the Ahmedabad-Yesvantpur AC Express (weekly); Varanasi-A’bad Express (weekly); A’bad-Patan (New DEMU); A’bad-Pune AC Duronto (tri-weekly ) and A’bad-Mumbai AC double-decker.
A closer scrutiny of the promises made by Mamata reveals that till today, 50% of them are yet to get the green signal. A special new concept of running a double-decker between Ahmedabad and Mumbai was also announced, but sources say that it may actually never take off, due to a technical snag.
Some other trains have met the same fate. The A’bad-Mumbai Duronto which currently runs three days a week, was made a daily in the last budget.
However, Amdavadis are still waiting to book tickets of this train without having to worry about its days of operations.
A tourist train, Janam Bhoomi Gaurav, running from Mumbai and covering Saurashtra, may not see the light of the day after some technical snag derailed the project. “We have time till March 31, 2012 and the remaining trains will begin before that. However, the Indian Railways are supposed to start trains within six months of announcement in the railway budget. But due to limited manpower and insufficient funds, launch is taking time,” said an official from the Indian Railways.
He further said that the western part of the country is one of the busiest routes traffic-wise. “Right now, we are running more trains than capacity.
The minister announced new trains with votes in mind, but implementation becomes very difficult. Unless new tracks are laid, launching will keep getting delayed. The dedicated freight corridor, which is under construction, may take a few years, but till then, it is difficult to manage so many trains on the same track,” said the official.
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