Railways fast-tracks construction of Talcher-Bimalgarh and Barkot-Jharsuguda lines

The railway ministry plans to complete the Talcher-Bimalgarh and Barkot-Jharsuguda railway lines on priority basis, railway minister D V Sadanand Gauda assured union minister for tribal affairs Jual Oram on Friday.

The Talcher-Bimalgarh railway railway line is not only important for the Railways from commercial point of view but will also greatly benefit the people of Sundergarh, Oran reminded the railway minister, adding that the demand for the line is more than half century old.

Oran said he had received many memorandums from Nitesh Gangdev MLA from Deoghar, senior BJP leaders from Odisha and several prominent citizens from Sundergarh for the construction of the two railway lines.

Speaking at a function in Bangalore, on Friday, Gowda also said the existing network of the Indian Railways, including operations and its core activities, will remain with the Indian Railways and will not be privatised.
 
Inaugurating the 59th annual Railway National Awards Function - 2014, the railway minister said Railways has allocated 40 per cent more in the current year's budget for cleanliness

Gowda gave away National Awards for Outstanding Service - 2014 to a total of 132 railway officials/staff from all over the country. The prestigious Govind Vallabh Pant Shield for the best overall performance amongst the best zonal railways and production units was awarded to West Central Railway (headquartered at Jabalpur).

''I wish this function gives all our railwaymen an encouragement to work hard, work efficiently and work innovatively to bring smiles on the faces of our travelling passengers and our freight customers. In our rich and eventful journey of 161 long years, we have covered many significant milestones. The old has given way to the new and we have embarked on the path of modernising every aspect of Railway operations. We are working on high speed rail corridors, on new designs of more efficient wagons, on the most efficient anti-collision devices like TCAS and TPWS, on new methods for ultrasonic detection of rail fracture to avoid derailments, Gowda said.

He said the Indian Railways runs more than 12,000 passenger trains and more than 7,000 freight trains every day. What the Railways requires is holistic planning and comprehensive measures that would enable it to match the best in the world. We have to work in this direction on a day-to-day basis, he added.