Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday hit out at previous governments for delaying the Dedicated Freight Corridor project and ignoring modernisation of railways, and said his government engaged with stakeholders to speed up works and carried out reforms at all levels. Inaugurating the New Bhaupur-New Khurja section of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) via video conferencing, he said the “vibration” and “roar” of Bharat and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ were clearly heard as the first freight train ran on the Khurja-Bhaupur freight corridor. After 2014 ,it was restarted and officials asked to take it forward and by then the budget had gone up by 11 times”, the prime minister said. There was no seriousness towards modernisation of the rail network, trains were being run on slow speed and the entire network was full of dangerous unmanned crossings, he said. The section will also decongest the existing Kanpur-Delhi mainline and will enable the Indian Railways to run faster trains.

Source: Indian Express December 29, 2020 09:45 UTC