Kapurthala: Minister of state for Railways
E Ahamed on Saturday inspected the newly developed Duronto coach,
manufactured by the Rail Coach Factory here.
The Duronto fast trains would run non-stop from its
origin to destination without any break in the journey, as
announced by the Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee in her budget
speech earlier.
Ahamed saw the functioning of the factory and the
production of various types of coaches.
He took interest in the newly developed Duronto coach,
which has been manufactured in a record time of 10 days and
suggested the Rail Coach Factory General Manager to make
provision for the first aid facilities in the new coaches.
RCF is likely to roll out seven to eight rakes of high
speed Duronto coaches during this year, according to an RCF
official.
Talking to mediapersons later, the Minister said that
trials were going on with non-air conditioned old double
decker coaches on Mumbai-Pune section for running the double
decker trains in the metropolitan cities to cope up with the
heavy rush of daily commuters. RCF was also developing air
conditioned Double Decker coaches, Ahamed said.
RCF General manager Pardeep Kumar told reporters that
RCF engineers were busy in preparing the designs of the these
double decker coaches and said that the factory would develop
the coach within a period of one year.
Replying to a question on the proposed fast corridor
between New Delhi to Amritsar rail section for running of the
bullet trains, the Minister said railway had made the initial
surveys and would carry out the extensive survey for the
construction of this fast corridor.
The idea of fast corridor was conceived by the former
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and the railway had not dropped
the proposal, the Minister said.
When asked about bringing out of white paper as
announced by the Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee on the
alleged inflated figures of profit shown by railways during
the tenure of Lalu Prasad, Ahamed refused to comment and said
that the white paper would be out soon.
The Minister said railways top priority is the safety
of passengers and it would take all the necessary steps to
avoid the rail accidents.
When his attention was drawn towards the RCF employees
demand for recruitment of workers to meet the high production
targets, the union minister said that railway was facing this
problem everywhere and the ministry would look into it.
Bureau Report
