By A Correspondent
Jamalpur: Union Minister of Railways, Information and Broadcasting, Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, reached Patna on his visit to Bihar, where he met Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar today and discussed the issue of ongoing railway projects in Bihar.
During his visit to Bihar, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw conducted a window trailing inspection between Patna to Jamalpur and gave necessary instructions to the officials. Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh and Deputy Chief Ministers of Bihar Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha were also present with him during his visit to Bihar.
After reaching Jamalpur, Ashwini Vaishnaw inspected Jamalpur station and inspected the redevelopment work at a cost of Rs 30 crore and gave necessary instructions to the officials.
In another bonanza for fresh impetus in the form of ₹78.96 crore towards development of Jamalpur Workshop, Ashwini Vaishnaw laid the foundation stone for the project of Wagon POH capacity augmentation at Jamalpur Workshop. Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying; Samrat Choudhary, Dy. Chief Minister of Bihar; and Vijay Kumar Sinha, Dy. Chief Minister of Bihar, were also present on the occasion.
On arriving at the Jamalpur Workshop, Vaishnaw, along with the other ministers and dignitaries, visited different shops like the wagon manufacturing shop and the crane shop. At Wagon Manufacturing Shop, the minister inspected the manufacturing of BOXN wagons, BLCS wagons, and brake vans having a provision of toilets, manufactured at Jamalpur Workshop. At the Crane Shop, the minister inspected the newly manufactured 140-tonne crane, the 8-wheeler tower car, and the Jamalpur Jack, which are the icons of this workshop. While at the workshop, the Union Railway Minister got a warm welcome from the staff of the Jamalpur Locomotive Workshop.
Afterward, the Union Railway Minister visited IRIMEE Jamalpur, where he released a booklet titled “Centre of Excellence” containing detailed development schemes on different branches of engineering like welding, pneumatics, hydraulics, and mechatronics. The book contains the action plans on these four subjects to develop the infrastructure and training facility at this prestigious training centre for engineers at IRIMEE, Jamalpur. This endeavor contains an investment plan of ₹350 crore for development of the whole area.
The minister during his inspection said, Under the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the development of Bihar reflects the giant leap in budgetary allocation for railways in Bihar from about ₹1000 crore a decade ago to the present-day budgetary allocation for railways to the tune of ₹10,000 crore. Moreover, there are many other things in the anvil for the development of Bihar, like the redevelopment of 98 stations and other railway projects worth ₹1,00,000 crore. The Railway Minister informed that 1832 km of new track has been laid in Bihar and 34000 km of railway track has been laid all over India in the last 10 years. Electrification has been completed over 50,000 km. Electrification of railways has also reduced the dependence on oil imports.
Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan Singh, appreciated the Union Railway Minister for his micro-level thinking and for driving development through a holistic approach.
Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, speaking on the occasion, expressed their thanks for the Railways’ contribution towards the development in Bihar.
With the laying of the foundation stone for the project for wagon POH Augmentation at Jamalpur Locomotive workshop, the wagon overhauling capacity per month will be increased progressively. This capacity enhancement project will be executed at a cost of about Rs 79 crore. This will lead to improvement in turnaround time, an increase in the availability of wagons, and improvement in operations.
Pranav Kumar, MLA; Ajay Kumar Singh, MLA; Rajiv Kumar Sinha, MLA; Lal Mohan Gupta, MLC and General Manager of East Central Railway; Chhatrasal Singh, General Manager of Eastern Railway; Milind Deouskar; and other dignitaries were also present on the occasion.
