RAILWAY SAMACHAR

Mumbai commuters disrupt train

traffic on crucial western line

Mumbai : Angry over train cancellation, thousands of office goers today blocked rail tracks at the key Borivli station, disrupting suburban train services for nearly five hours and prompting the police to baton-charge the protesters. Nearly 30 people, including 15 women, were detained as the slogan-shouting commuters spilled on the tracks, bringing services to a halt on the westernrailway line which caters to an estimated 63 lakh people daily.They "will be charged under sections like rioting and destruction of Railway property," Government Railway Police Commissioner (Mumbai) A K Sharma said. "Wehad to lathi-charge to disperse protesters." "The protesters in thousands blocked the tracks from 0918 hours and did not allow north or south bound services to operate from Borivli, an important junction where lakhs of commuters board and alight," a railway police official said.

S.S. Khurana has taken over as the

new Chairman, Railway Board

New Delhi : Mr. S. S. Khurana has taken over as the new Chairman, Railway Board and ex-officio Principal Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Railways. Prior to this, he was holding the post of Member (Staff), Railway Board sinceDecember 28, 2007. Born in 1950, Khurana did Electrical Engineering from University of Roorkee.As officer of 1971 batch of the Indian Railway Service, Khurana has worked invarious capacities in Indian Railways. Khurana served as General Manager, East Coast Railway, General Manager/Eastern Railway, Additional General Manager, Northeast Frontier Railway, Chief Electrical Engineer in the Central Organization for Railway Electrification(CORE), Allahabad, Divisional Railway Manager, Adra (SER), Additional DivisionalRailway Manager, Dhanbad, Chief Project Manager, Railway Electrification at Ambala. He also worked on the research and design aspects of electric locomotives at theResearch, Design and Standards organization, Lucknow.Khurana received training in Sweden, Japan and USA. He also attended the Advance Leadership Programme at the Stern Business School, New York, USA.

Sonia to flag off multi-crore rail

project at Bihar's Rohtas district

New Delhi : Work on the 1,805 km-long Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor project would start next week when Congress President Sonia Gandhi inaugurates it in Bihar's Rohtas district. Gandhi along with Railway Minister Lalu Prasad will flag off the work on theproject on February 10. Over the last two to three years rail freight traffic has grown by 8 to 11 percent and is projected to touch 1100 million tonnes by the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan. The Rs 30,000 crore Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) project, one of theflagship projects of railways, is envisaged to carry the projected volume offreight traffic. While The Eastern Freight Corridor project aims to link Dankuni in West Bengalwith Ludhiana in Punjab, the Western Corridor links Delhi with Mumbai.The traffic on the Eastern Corridor mainly comprises coal for the power plantsin the northern region of UP, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, and parts of Rajasthanfrom the Eastern Coal fields, finished steel, food grains, cement, fertilisers, limer stone from Rajasthan, to steel plants in the east and general goods.

Velu will be visiting China

Chennai : A high-level technical delegation headed by Minister of State for Railways R. Velu will be visiting China from February four to eight in pursuance of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on technical cooperation signed between theChinese and Indian Railways.The MoU was signed to have an exchange of ideas on the issues of high speedrailway network, world class railway stations, logistics parks, among others, a Railway release here said. The delegation, includes three technical officersfrom Ministry of Railways (Works Planning, Signalling and Finance Divisions),the release added.