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After a railway coach manufacturing unit at Kutch announced in the previous Railway Budget, Gujarat is now set to get a Rail Neer bottling plant at Ahmedabad. The Rail Neer bottling plant is among the six such units announced by Union Minister for Railways, Pawan Bansal during the Railway Budget 2013-14 on Tuesday.
"Some of the measures taken/proposed to be taken for improving passengers' travel experience are... setting up of six more Rail Neer bottling plants at Vijayawada, Nagpur, Lalitpur, Bilaspur, Jaipur and Ahmedabad," said Bansal during his budget speech on Tuesday.
Some of the major cities and towns in Gujarat also saw announcement of varied services like new trains, line surveys, gauge conversion and doubling of railway lines. For instance, new weekly trains were announced connecting Gujarat cities and towns including Ahmedabad – Jodhpur Express; Bandra Terminus – Hisar Express via Ahmedabad; Bandra Terminus – Haridwar Express via Valsad; Gandhidham – Visakhapatnam Express via Ahmedabad; and Una/Nangaldam– Hazoor Saheb Nanded Express.
Also new passenger trains were announced between Bhavnagar and Palitana, Bhavnagar and Surendranagar, Nadiad and Modasa, Surendranagar and Dhrangadhara, and Somanath and Rajkot.
The Railways minister also announced extension of existing trains till certain cities and towns of Gujarat such as Bhubaneswar – Bhawanipatna Express to Junagadh, Somnath-Dwarka Express to Okha, Porbander-Veraval Passenger to Somnath, and Morbi-Wankaner DEMU to Rajkot. Apart from that, frequency of certain trains in Gujarat were also increased including Agra Fort –Ahmedabad Express from 3 to 7 days; Ahmedabad-Nagpur Express from 2 to 3 days; and Gorakhpur – Ahmedabad Express from 1 to 2 days. Other announcements include doubling of railway lines between Palanpur- Samakhiali (through PPP); Vatva-Ahmedabad (3rd line); Kandla-Palanpur and Rajkot-Veraval.
‘Its visionless, non-performing’
Terming the Union Railway budget as non-performing, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that it lacked vision and would prove detrimental for the country in facing competition at international level. In an official release Modi stated that railway budget will increase the burden of rising prices on the common people.
