The presence of a good number of senior MPs representing different parliamentary constituencies of Purvanchal (eastern UP) and adjoining Bihar, especially served by Varanasi division of North Eastern Railway (NER) at a meeting with the senior NER officers, including General Manager (GM) Chandra Vir Raman and Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Ramashray Pandey here on Thursday, indicates how the public representatives realise the importance of Indian Railways in the overall development of their areas. They not only participated representing different areas but also gave their valuable suggestions as per needs and aspirations of their parliamentary areas apart from praising the NER works. The attending of the meeting by several MPs themselves, including former Union Minister Rajeev Pratap Rudy (MP from Chhapra Lok Sabha seat), Janardhan Singh Sikriwal (Maharajgan, Bihar), Virendra Singh ‘Mast’ (Ballia), Ramesh Chand Bind (Bhadohi), Vijay Kumar Dubey (Kushinagar), Sangeeta Azad (Lalganj, Azamgarh) and Shyam Singh Yadav (Jaunpur) just hinted at that how these MPs gave importance to the meeting prior to the 2024 parliamentary elections as undoubtedly, the Railways has changed the face of this once known as one of the backward regions of the country. Besides, the physical presence of these MPs, the representatives of almost all other MPs, including Ramapati Ram (Deoria), Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ (Azamgarh), Ravindra Kushwaha (Salempur), Dr Alok Kumar Suman (Gopalganj, Bihar), Kamesh Paswan (Bansgaon, Gorakhpur), Ravindra Shyam Narayan Shukla ‘Ravikishan (Gorakhpur), Union Minister Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey (Chandauli), Union Minister Anupriya Patel (Mirzapur), BP Saraj (Machhalishahr, Jaunpur), Atul Kumar Singh (Ghosi), Pankaj Chaudhary (Maharajganj, UP) and Rajya Sabha MP Sakal Deep Rajbhar (Ballia) also attended the meeting. Listening to the issues raised by the MPs and their representatives, the NER GM thanked the former for apprising the meeting of the aspirations and needs of the common people. “We’ve taken substantial steps in our railway functioning in all areas, including enhancement of line capacity, upgradation of passenger amenities, safe operation of trains, employee welfare, green initiatives for protection of environment and many more,” he said, adding that our careful planning, hard work and efficient and better utilisation of available assets have resulted in many encouraging achievements with marked improvement in safety over NER. “During the financial year 2022-23, maximum commissioning work was done in doubling and gauge conversion, which is the highest during the last 10 years. Besides, 145.7 km of doubling work was done by the construction organisations and 92.92 km of doubling work was commissioned by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL). In gauge conversion, the work of commissioning of 34.7 km in Indara-Dohrighat section was done. Thetotal doubling work of 193.34 km has been done in Varanasi division during FY 2022-23 which is the highest commissioning done in any division in Indian Railways,” Raman claimed. He said from almost zero electrification in 2014, all operational broad gauge routes of NER have been electrified by March 2023. Electrification work in Shohratgarh-Pachperwa, Daliganj-Malhaur and Bankeganj (East)-Mailani sections have been successfully completed recently. A total of 805.63 km electrification work has been completed during the year 2022-23,” informed the NER GM. The meeting was conducted by DGM (General) KC Singh while DRM Ramashray Pandey, through a powerpoint presentation, apprised all the MPs about several important works and development work plans done by Varanasi division related to infrastructure and passenger facilities.