Lalu promises to connect Punjab with major ports

"At about Rs 22,000 crore, a separate third track will be laid between Ludhiana to Kolkata and Mumbai for dedicated Freight Corridor" Lalu, who was at Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Kapurthala to see mock up of Garib rath, told reporters on Sunday.

He revealed that last year railway earned profit of Rs 13,000 crore and this year target has been put to increase the profit to Rs 20,000 crore. To generate more profit, rail-fare will not be increased, he hastened to clarify.

"We want Indian Railways, which is at present at number three in the world, to be at the top position in the coming years for which blue print has already been prepared" he added.

At present the Indian Railways was importing several components for coach manufacturing like wheal etc, but in the coming years, all components would be manufactured indigenously. Lalu ruled out any hike in the rail fare after expected increase in the diesel prices. Lalu also announced that to provide air-conditioned but affordable service to low and middle-income long distance passengers "Garib Rath" would be on the track from October this year.

On the recent agitation by the employees of RCF against the proposed privatisation of the Factory, Lalu said "it was sheer misunderstanding in the minds of employees about the privatisation as Indian Railways never wanted to give the profit making RCF in the private hands"

Railway Minister also announced reward of Rs 30 lakh for the RCF employees for their contribution in the progress of railway.

"To keep my promise of launching of Garib Rath for poor people, work on manufacturing the rake was on both at Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala and Integral Coach Factory, Chennai," he said adding that these will be super fast trains and will be initially introduced between Hazrat Nizamuddin and three destinations of Patna, Bandra and Chennai apart from between Saharsa and Amritsar.

Efforts at both RCF, Kapurthala and ICF, Chennai were being made to redesign the coach with larger moving profile for optimizing the passenger carrying capacity, he added.

First rake of the "Garib rath" would have air-conditioned accommodation in two types of coaches namely sleeping coaches and sitting coaches and would enable the Railways to assess customer response, he said adding that sleeping coaches would have 74 berths per coach and sitting coaches would cater to relatively shorter distance road side passengers, would have 102 seats per coach, thus AC sleeper coaches would have eight additional berths and sitting coaches would have 12 more seats than the existing coaches in other trains.