Railways likely to link Delhi, state capitals with Garib Rath

Seeing the overwhelming response of passengers to 'Garib Rath', a dream project of Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad for providing low-cost air-conditioned rail services to the poor, the ministry is now planning to introduce such trains from all the state headquarters to the national capital from next year.

The proposal is being considered by higher authorities, said Mr.S K Suri, who recently took over as the General Manager of the Rail Coach Factory. He said the initial response to the 'Garib Rath', running on the Amritsar-Saharsa route, was "lukewarm" but now the passengers' response was very good. Railways has hence decided to increase the number of coaches from 16 to 24 in the Graib Rath express, Suri said.

The railways also plans to run the trains in the Nizammudin-Patna, Nizamuddin-Bandra and Nizammudin-Chennai route during the current financial year, he said. The next rake of 16 coaches would be rolled out of the factory by the end of November this year and factory would turn out 68 coaches including 56 sleeper chances and 12 power generation cars by the end of March next year.

Claiming that RCF has the capability to manufacture coaches for metro trains, Suri said RCF would participate in the global bidding. He also claimed that RCF would also achieve its production target of 1,268 coaches fixed by the Railways board during this financial year and the present rate of production is about five coaches a day.

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