Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Sunday announced that work on developing the first-of-its-kind elevated railway line at Rohtak would begin soon.
The Union Minister dedicated the new 81-km Sonipat-Jind railway line, platform number 4/5 and a foot over bridge at Sonipat station to the nation, and inaugurated new passenger train service between Sonipat and Jind via video conferencing.
He also laid the foundation stone for development of 17 lifts and 10 escalators at various stations, and low-height subways at 37 locations in Haryana, apart from other railway projects.
Speaking after inaugurating a number of railway projects here, Prabhu said that Haryana has become the first state to form a joint venture company with Railways for development of rail infrastructure in the state. This would give rail infrastructure a big push. While the UPA Government had spent Rs 314 crore on the development of rail infrastructure in Haryana, the NDA Government had decided to double the amount, said he.
Accepting the demands raised by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal, Prabhu announced that work on developing an elevated railway line at Rohtak, which had already been approved in principle, would begin soon and halts of trains on some routes would be introduced in deference to the wishes of the people of the state.
Work to acquire land for new Rohtak-Meham-Hansi railway line has been started. This project is likely to be completed at a cost of about Rs 660 crore. During the past 19 months, 15 railway over bridges (ROBs) and under bridges (RUBs) have been constructed in the state and work was underway on 20 ROBs and RUBs, at a cost of about Rs 1,000 crore, as compared to 67 ROBs and RUBs constructed during the past 48 years, he added.
On the occasion, the Chief Minister raised the demand for starting work on modernisation of 10 railway stations as earmarked under a Memorandum of Understanding signed recently between the Haryana Government and the Railways, at the earliest. He also raised the demand for starting a new train from Delhi to Haridwar with halts at Kurukshetra, Ambala and Saharanpur and for scheduling a halt on the Kalka-Sainagar train at Karnal.
Manohar lal said that keeping in view the large number of people travelling from different locations in Haryana to Delhi, there is need to increase the number of local trains in the National Capital Region of Haryana.