Agartala, Oct 28: Union Minister of State for Railways, Rajen Gohain flagged off the Agartala– New Delhi (Anand Vihar) Rajdhani Express at a ceremonial function held at Agartala Railway Station making Agartala the third Northeastern capital city to be connected with the national capital.
Tripura Governor, Tathagata Roy, Tripura Ministers – Badal Choudhury and Manik Dey, Members of Parliament (Lok Sabha) – Shankar Prasad Dutta and Jitendra Chowdhury, MLA Dilip Sarkar were among the dignitaries present at the function.
Senior Railway officers led by General Manager
, Chahatey Ram and hundreds of enthusiastic people attended the function.
Speaking at the ceremony, Gohain said that since the new government took charge at the Centre three years ago, the Northeastern region has been given special attention and at present
, a number of railway construction works are simultaneously being undertaken in the entire Northeast.
He said, funds were never a constraint for realising developmental works in the region and the Central government believes in a holistic approach for development which is not narrowed down by region-specific consideration.
Gohain said, among all the North-eastern states, Tripura got the best of rail connectivity under the current government. He also said that he had intervened personally to provide the shortest possible route for the new Rajdhani Express so that the people of the state get faster connectivity with the national capital.
Tripura Governor, Tathagata Roy in his speech lauded the efforts of the railways and said that it was the outlook of the government that played important role in bringing in development to the region.
Other speakers also praised railways for the efforts in providing better train service to the State and called upon the N. F. Railway authorities to continue providing better services and facilities while appealing for timely completion of projects.
The new Rajdhani Express train will leave Agartala at 6.30 pm every Monday and reach Anand Vihar (New Delhi) at 11.20 am on Wednesday. During the return journey, the train will leave Anand Vihar at 7.50 pm of Wednesday and reach Agartala at 12.30 pm on Friday.
The train will cover a distance of about 2,457 km in about 41 hours.
The train will have 01 First-Class AC coach, 02 Two-Tier AC coaches and 08 Three-Tier AC coaches besides one Pantry Car and two Generator-cum- luggage vans. The train will have Flexi-Fare in AC 2 Tier and AC 3 Tier. The train will have commercial stoppages at Dharmanagar, Badarpur, New Halflong, Hojai, Guwahati, Kamakhya, Rangiya, Barpeta Road, New Jalpaiguri, Katihar, Barauni, Patliputra, Mughal Sarai and Kanpur. Commercial stoppages would be also provided at New Karimganj after completion of certain formalities very soon.
It may be mentioned that, Agartala, the capital of Tripura, became the third NE state capital to be connected with broad gauge (BG) railway line in 2016. The first-ever BG express train connecting Agartala with New Delhi was flagged off on July 31, 2016.
