Delhi-Ludhiana Shatabdi to chug off from today
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 3
The Delhi-Ludhiana Shatabdi train, which will traverse via Rohtak and Sangrur, will be flagged off by Minister of State for Railways KH Muniyappa from Ludhiana tomorrow. The Shatabdi, which has come about following an initiative of Ludhiana MP Manish Tewari, is in fact the restarting of an earlier service which ran for only three months in 2008.
Manish Tewari said the Shatabdi would be a boon for commuters of Ludhiana who wished to reach Delhi late in the evening to catch international flights. He said the reverse was also true for Punjabis coming from abroad as the train restarted on its journey back to Ludhiana early in the morning from Delhi.
Tewari claimed that the train had been temporarily routed through Rohtak-Sangrur because of congestion on the main Ambala trunk line.
The Railways authorities, however, claim that the Shatabdi is likely to continue plying on the Rohtak-Sangrur track. The Northern Railway General Manager SK Budhalakoti, when contacted, said the present route was a permanent arrangement. He said the route via Ambala was saturated and moreover it was the endeavour of the Railways to provide superior Shatabdi services to new places. “The present train is serving new points of Rohtak and Sangrur”, he added.
The Rohtak-Sangrur route is likely to increase the journey time because the Shatabdi cannot travel on high speed on it. There is only a marginal increase of 11 km as far as distance is concerned. The Railways GM said the train, which was presently scheduled to run for four days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, would start running for six days a week once the Railways got a new rake for the train.
Meanwhile, the Sangrur MP Vijay Inder Singla claimed he had submitted a written letter to the former Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on the day she announced the train in the Railway Budget urging the train run through Sangrur. He said he had made a similar request to the Prime Minister who had acknowledged the same and assured him that he would look into the matter. He thanked both of them for providing this service to the Malwa region in Punjab.
A New beginning
l The Shatabdi will be a boon for commuters of Ludhiana who wish to reach Delhi late in the evening to catch international flights
l The train has been temporarily routed through Rohtak-Sangrur because of congestion on the main Ambala trunk line
l The train, which is scheduled to run for four days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, will start running for six days a week once the Railways gets a new rake
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