In his maiden Railway budget presented in the lok Sabha for the year 2014-15, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda announced a semi high-speed train and an Express train for Bilaspur zone on Tuesday.
The Bilaspur Zone got the semi high-speed train between Nagpur and Bilaspur Railway station while the second train is to be introduced between Bilaspur and Hapa weekly Railway station (Gujarat).Though the schedule of both the trains is yet to be made public, but the trains are expected to halt at major junctions including Raipur during the journey.
Besides, the minister mentioned to introduce 5 general trains, 5 premium trains, 6 AC trains, 27 Express trains and 8 passenger trains in the annual budget.As per the budget announcement, Raipur and other major Railway stations of the State are expected to have facilities including RO drinking water facility for passengers, online booking of retiring rooms, woman constables in woman coaches, platform and general tickets through internet, CCTV camera installation, food court and packed food facilities.
“Raipur is the boarding point for as many as four Express trains but none of these trains are equipped with pantry car” said former member of Divisional Railway Users Consultative Committee (DRUCC) Ashok Agrawal.All the Railway committees were dissolved soon after the new government came into power but the suggestions, made by its members to the Railway board, were very useful. Besides, the committee members had urged the board to ensure availability of 108 Ambulance service at the railway station to deal with any emergency, said Agrawal.
Agrawal added that people from Raipur had great expectations from the Railway ministry to strengthen security and safety of passengers, increasing facilities including sanitation and healthy food and introducing trains on some routes, but little are seemed to be fulfilled in this budget.He said that the passengers were also expecting that the Railways to reintroduce 08796 Korba-Raipur-Korba Superfast train or replacing it with any new train but to no avail.The Railways had introduced the Superfast train on February 28 but only for a short span of three months as same was discontinue in May.