Nine Durontos, three Shatabdis and double-decker AC trains...

New Delhi : As many as nine new Duronto trains, three Shatabdi Express trains and double-decker air conditioned services on two routes were announced by railway minister Miss Mamata Banerjee today.

The new Shatabdi Express would link Pune-Secunderabad, Jaipur-Agra and Ludhiana-Delhi while the AC double-decker services are proposed on Jaipur-Delhi and Ahmedabad-Mumbai routes. The Duronto trains are Allahabad-Mumbai AC (bi-weekly), Pune-Ahmedabad AC (tri-weekly), Sealdah-Puri non-AC (tri- weekly), Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam AC (tri-weekly), Madurai- Chennai AC (bi-weekly), Chennai-Thiruvananthapuram AC (bi- weekly), Mumbai Central-New Delhi AC (bi-weekly), Nizamuddin- Ajmer non-AC (bi-weekly) and Shalimar-Patna (tri-weekly). To mark the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda in 2013, Miss Banerjee in her Rail Budget proposed introduction of new trains called “Vivek Express”.

The first four such trains would be introduced on Dibrugarh-Thiruvantharam-Kanyakumari Express (weekly) via Kokrajhar, Dwarka-Tuticorin Express (weekly) via Wadi, Howrah-Mangalore Express (weekly) via Palghat and Bandra(T)-Jammu Tawi Express (weekly) via Marwar-Degana-Ratangarh-Jakhal-Ludhiana. Four Kavi Guru Express trains would also proposed to be introduced to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. They will be on the routes of Howrah-Azimganj Express (daily) via Sagardighi, Guwahati-Jaipur Express (weekly) via Kasganj-Faizabad-Gorakhpur-Kokrajhar, Howrah-Bolpur Express (daily) and Howrah-Porbandar Express (weekly).

More facilities for employees, families

Medical facilities for staff and their families in remote areas, increasing scholarship amount to girl child and setting up a Board to develop schools were some of the proposals put forth today for welfare of railway employees. The Railway Budget also included proposal for expansion of the scope of liberalised active retirement scheme guaranteed for safety category staff by enhancing the existing criteria of grade from Rs 1,800 to Rs 1,900. In order to provide easy access to medical facilities in remote areas for employees, Miss Banerjee has proposed to provide 20 road medical vans at different locations. Besides increasing the scholarship amount to Rs 1,200 per month for girl child of gangman and Group-D employees for higher education, she said 20 hostels for children of railway employees have been commissioned and another 20 would be set up next year. pti

Four special tourist trains

New Delhi : To promote rail tourism, four special tourist trains called “Janam Bhoomi Gaurav” will be launched to connect important historical and educational places. These special trains, announced in the Rail Budget today, will ply on the following routes: Howrah-Bolpur-Rajgir (Nalanda)-Pataliputra (Patna)-Varanasi (Sarnath)-Gaya-Howrah; Bangalore-Mysore-Hassan (Space Facility, Belur, Halebid, Shravanbengola)- Hubli-Gadag (Hampi)-Bijapur (Gole Gumbaz)- Bangalore; Chennai- Puduchcheri- Tiruchichirappali- Madurai- Kanniyakumari -Thiruvananthpuram- Ernakulam- Chennai; and Mumbai- Ahmedabad- (Lothal)- Bhavnagar (Palitana) -(Alang)- Gir-Diu (Somnath-Veraval)-(Junagarh)-Rajkot-Mumbai.