Railway Budget 2015: Karunanidhi asks Centre for new rail schemes in Tamil Nadu

Panneerselvam had sought to announce 10 specific schemes in Tamil Nadu and urged for funds for another 22 projects in the state.

By PTI | Updated: Feb 08, 2015, 02.04 PM IST

Railway Budget 2015: Karunanidhi asks Centre for new rail schemes in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: DMK president M Karunanidhi today asked the Centre to announce new rail schemes for Tamil Nadu in the upcoming Rail Budget as sought by Chief Minister O Panneerselvam.

"I request the Prime Minister and the Railway Minister on behalf of the DMK to accept the schemes sought by the Chief Minister on various railway schemes in Tamil Nadu and announce them in the upcoming rail budget," Karunanidhi said in a statement, referring to the Chief Minister's letter to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on February 6.

Panneerselvam had sought to announce 10 specific schemes in Tamil Nadu and urged for funds for another 22 projects in the state, which were announced in the previous budgets but without fund allocation.

"I also urge that sufficient funds be allocated in the upcoming Rail Budget 2015-16 to 22 schemes for Tamil Nadu which were announced during previous budgets," Karunanidhi added.

The Rail Budget for 2015-16 is to be presented on February 26.

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2014: Nine major initiatives from Indian Railways

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Economictimes.com

High-speed trains, mobile ticketing, cleaner stations and better food - these are just some of the many initiatives that were taken by the Indian Railways to improve passenger experience and its own functioning.

Among the plethora of steps taken by the Railways, we highlight nine steps that deserve a special mention:

Economictimes.com

High-speed trains, mobile ticketing, cleaner stations and better food - these are just some of the many initiatives that were taken by the Indian Railways to improve p..

A Mobile Ticketing System was inaugurated for Mumbai Suburban tickets at Dadar station on December 27, 2014. Initially this system has been launched at Dadar station only.

It will be implemented at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Kurla, Thane and Kalyan soon and thereafter at other stations in a phased manner. One can download the free application for Android/Windows to avail this facility. Application for iPhone and Blackberry will be available soon.

How it works: A user has to open the application and sign up by giving details like name, mobile number and city, after which a one-time password is sent through SMS. On entering the OTP, the user is registered and an 'R-wallet' with zero balance is created.

At the journey originating station, the user has to go to an Automatic Ticket Vending Machine (ATVM) and select Print Mobile Ticket option, enter the mobile number and booking ID to get a printed ticket.

A Mobile Ticketing System was inaugurated for Mumbai Suburban tickets at Dadar station on December 27, 2014. Initially this system has been launched at Dadar station only.

It will be implemen..

Wi-Fi Broadband services are now available at the New Delhi Railway Station. The Wi-Fi project for Indian Railways is being executed by RailTel, a public sector undertaking of the Ministry of Railways. The Indian Railways also successfully implemented Wi-Fi facility at the Bangalore Railway station.

The 'RailWire' powered Wi-Fi gives maximum speed of 1 mbps. Wi-Fi facility is available to the users free of cost initially for a period of 30 minutes by registering on the Wi-Fi network through their mobile.

In pic: Passengers use Wi-Fi Broadband services at New Delhi railway station

Indian Railways has been issued directions for formulation of Integrated Policy on Cleanliness on stations, platforms and in coaches. "This policy will ensure better and effective coordination among number of departments involved for providing cleanliness," says the Railways.

As part of the 'Swachh Bharat Mission', the Indian Railways has launched a massive special cleanliness campaign since October 2, 2014. Apart from this, 'track cleaning machines' have been introduced by Northern Railways.

In another landmark engineering marvel, Indian Railways completed Udhampur-Katra Broad gauge line in Jammu & Kashmir. Four train services up to Katra commenced from July 2014. These are: New Delhi- Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra Express, Pathankot-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra DMU and two DMUs between Jammu Tawi-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra.

The line enables pilgrims to the Vaishno Devi shrine to travel directly to the base camp at Katra. Constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 1050 crore, the route consists of seven tunnels and 30 small and big bridges. A total of seven tunnels span over 10 km of the 25-km stretch.

The Udhampur-Katra rail route passes through hostile terrain, making it an extremely challenging project. The most difficult task for railways was to complete and lay tracks on 3.1-km-long tunnel on the route.

A trial of e-catering service in trains has been started by the Indian Railways. IRCTC has been entrusted with the job of implementation of this service.

IRCTC on a trial basis has started e-catering services on a few trains on Delhi-Amritsar section since September 2014. With the help of this service, a passenger is able to place an order for a meal, to be served at his seat in the train, through a phone call or an SMS.

Formal launching of e-catering service will be decided on the success of the above trial.

In pic: An IRCTC thali

A trial of e-catering service in trains has been started by the Indian Railways. IRCTC has been entrusted with the job of implementation of this service.

IRCTC on a trial basis has started e-..

Booking rail tickets through the IRCTC website is going to be hassle-free for now. The new e-ticketing system developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) would allow booking of 7200 tickets per minute against 2000 tickets through the existing system.

Some of the salient features of the new IT initiatives/applications are; Next Generation e-ticketing (NGeT); NGet system which can book 7200 online tickets instead of 2000 tickets per minute, attending 2,00,000 enquiries instead of 50000 per minute.

Passengers can now easily track information relating to arrivals and departure timings of trains and other information on their mobile phones as CRIS has launched mobile app.

Meghalaya was recently added to the country's railway map with the first passenger train to the northeastern state. The latest estimated project cost is about Rs 275 crore.

To further boost the development of rail link in North Eastern region, PM Narendra Modi also laid the foundation for a new rail route from Bhairabi to Sairang in Mizoram on November 29, 2014. It will ensure rail connectivity to Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram.

Image by: North-East Frontier Railway

Meghalaya was recently added to the country's railway map with the first passenger train to the northeastern state. The latest estimated project cost is about Rs 275 crore.

To further boost t..

The Minister of Railways recently commissioned a 30 KW Solar plant on the roof top of Rail Bhawan in New Delhi. "Indian Railways is planning to harness solar energy in a big way which will be a step forward in mitigating the challenges currently being experienced by environment," the Railway Ministry has said.

Railways will expedite provision of solar plants at other railway station buildings, preferably using the PPP model. In keeping with its objective to resort to more eco-friendly sources of energy, in October, Northern Railways commenced the project for providing a Solar Power Plant at Shri Mata Vaishno Katra Railway Station.

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Railway Budget 2015: Karunanidhi asks Centre for new rail schemes in Tamil Nadu

Panneerselvam had sought to announce 10 specific schemes in Tamil Nadu and urged for funds for another 22 projects in the state.

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