Union Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will flag off the individual running of the Bhubaneswar-Junagarh Road-Bhubaneswar Express and inaugurate Odia script in unreserved train tickets on Saturday.
Pradhan will perform the inauguration through videoconferencing from the East Coast Railway (ECoR) headquarters here in presence of Odisha Commerce and Transport Minister Padmanava Behera, Minister of State for Science and Technology Ashok Chandra Panda, Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi, MLAs Ananta Narayan Jena and Susant Kumar Rout.
Minister of Energy and Industries Dibya Shankar Mishra, and Leader of Opposition of State Assembly Pradipta Kumar Naik, Kalahandi MP Basanta Panda will be the guests for local function at the Junagarh Road station.
Earlier, the train was running jointly with the Bhubaneswar-Jagadalpur-Bhubaneswar Hirakhand Express between Bhubaneswar and Rayagada from both the directions and was being separated at Rayagada towards Jagadalpur and Junagarh Road, respectively.
Passengers can purchase train tickets of Odia script from all the Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) counters in Odisha towards different destinations.
The longstanding demand of the people of Kalahandi district would be fulfilled after the flagging off the train.