Ramit Mehrotra, Pune
During the upcoming festive season, Indian Railways has decided to make 6,000 special trains functional to ensure at least 1 crore passengers get home to Durga Puja, Diwali, and Chhath Pooja. Major train routes, typically heading towards Bihar, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh face heavy congestion during the festive season. The volume of general bogies is bumped in 108 trains for up to 12,500 new coaches .
The Puja Special Trains 2024 will help passengers travel from remote locations and return home during the Pooja season. At least 5, 975 trains are alerted. On Thursday, the Railway Ministry announced a special train plying from Mumbai to Jaipur between September 27 and September 28. The announcement was made to deal with the yearly rush during the festivities like Diwali, Navratri and Chhat Pooja. The major stops of the train would be Surat, Wasai Road, Vadodara, Godhra, Ratlam, Kota and Sawai Madhopur stations.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Minister expressed his joy on the microblogging platform X that Vande Bharat was incepted at the confidence of the railway engineers of India. Vande Bharat is now multiplying with numerous other trains such as the NaMo Bharat train, and new trains with sleeper coaches that are being produced in the country without the dependency on imports of essential goods.
Four special trains will leave from Howrah for various stations such as Khatipura, Raxual, and New Jalpaiguri. Two special trains will leave from Bhagalpur from Haridwar and Delhi with close to 61,000 berths made available for passengers. And many other special trains leaving from various locations to major cities.
According to an ANI report, the railway minister had inspected Kavach 4.0 technology in Rajasthan and said that Sawai Madhopur is the first station in the country to have Kavach 4.0 safely tested and ready to be used, and assured that close to 10, 000 trains would be infused with the Kavach technology. Kavach helps the train drivers operate the train to a specific permissible limit with the help of applying automatic brakes, in case the manual brakes fail.
Meanwhile, in the south, Southern Central Railways (SCR) has also announced 48 special trains between October 11 and December 2 ahead of Dusherra, Diwali, and Chhat festivals. Trains from Nanded to Panvel and vis-a-versa will be operational between October 21 and November 27.