BIHAR TO GET HUGE GIFT FROM RAILWAY

(LALU PD YADAV; ARCHITECT OF RAILWAYS TURNAROUND)

Bihar is going to have two more new Railways Divisional Manager offices now. The Minister for Railways Lalu pd had proposed creation of Thawe ( gopalganj) and Bhagalpur divisional railway offices in the 2009-10 rail budget. Since this Budget has been passed by the Parliament, it paved the way of creation of the same.

Lalu pd today laid the foundation stones of these two newly created DRM offices in Thawe and Bhagalpur respectively.

With these two DRM offices coming to existence, the total number of DRM offices in Bihar has gone up to five(5). Besides these two, there are three DRM offices located at Danapur (Patna), Sonepur (Chhapra) and Samastipur respectively. All these two Divisional offices would be placed under North-Eastern Railway(NER) Zonal office, at Gorakhpur and Northern railway Howrah.

The creation of these two offices would increase the employment opportunities in this state and also add more revenues to the state's coffer. The actual construction work of these offices are likely to start only when the new govt takes office at the centre. Lalu pd has started constrution work in Bihar on a massive scale. One road-cum-rail bridge is being constructed at Digha in Patna and other is being built in Munger. One electric engine work shop is being constructed in Madhepura, whereas; wheel factory is likely begin in Chhapra. Besides this many railway stations have been updraded and modernised. Patna railway station has already been given face lift and sereral others are being given new and modern look. Gone are the days when you look the colonial vestige image on the railway stations in India. According to the information available with the public domain, about 60,000 crores rupees would be spent on these on going and proposed schemes in this development starved state.

DEDICATED FREIGHT CORRIDOR;HISTORY IN MAKING

BUILDING INDIA OF 21ST CENTURY

With the inauguration of construction work of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) by Sonia Gandhi and Lalu Prasad on 10th February, 2009 at Dehri-on-Sone in Bihar added a new chapter in the history of economic development of India. This ambitious project is said to be the biggest ever in the Post-Independent India which will cost about Rs/-24,000 Crore (in EDFC only) according to initial estimate. This estimate would go up and Railways have arranged funds from International agencies like Asian development Bank, world Bank and Japanese financial institutions. 

In this project a dedicate lane of rail track would be laid from Dhankuni in West Bengal to Ludhiana via Dehri-on-sone, a total length of 1850 Kms. Similarly, a Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) would be constructed connecting from Ludhiana via Dadri to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust in Mahrastra. 

With the construction of this corridor, a dedicated rail track would be made available for the freight carriage. It is said that the freight trains would move at a 100 Kms/hr speed and the percentage of freight carriage by Railways vis-a-vis road would improve resulting in significant rise in the earnings of Railways which is soaring with a rocketing speed during Lalu’s regime. According to this fiscal year’s estimate, the gross profit of railways would go up to Rs/-70,000 crore with 76% operating ratio, the best in the world.

The construction of EDFC and WDFC were conceived years ago but due to one reason or the other it was not being implemented. According to the railways sources, the railways are incurring loss in passengers train but earning profits in freight trains, but due to political compulsions and welfare state concept no govt can afford to either hike the fare or diminish facilities. Therefore the concept of a dedicate freight corridor was visualised which would provide uninterrupted and dedicate track to the freight trains.

The story of Lalu’s magic and miracle with respect to railways turnaround is based on this concept in he provides succour to passengers and increase the share of freight in the transport sector.