Sunday, Jul 07, 2002
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By Our Special Correspondent
``The so-called bifurcation of the Eastern Railway has not taken place. The territories of the zones are being readjusted and all the zones except one are affected. The decision to create new zones is a correct one. In fact, the whole exercise should not be of any concern to those outside the Railways,'' he told presspersons here. Mr. Kumar, who was here to flag off the newly-introduced weekly Superfast Express between Jaipur and Durg (Chattisgarh), will hold talks with the Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot, on the setting up of the new North-Western zone, to be headquartered here. He visited the proposed site of the headquarters building, taken in exchange with the State Government for Railway property elsewhere. ``I will not do anything on someone's demand,'' he said when asked about a letter from the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddadeb Bhattacharjee, on the proposed changes. "I have answered the letter. Territorial re-adjustment is not a State-centric affair. In some cases, many States come under a single zone. Moreover, Eastern Railway is not bifurcated or `trifurcated' as feared by some. Whichever is the zone, the economy is of the Indian Railways.'' He said that "not an inch'' of West Bengal territory would be taken away by the new East-Central Railway to be headquartered at Hajipur. As for the transfer of staff from one zone to the other, no forcible transfers would be made. The expenses for the creation of the new zones would be less than estimated earlier. "We had envisaged an expense of Rs.100 crores a zone but now it is felt that it would work out for less than that,'' Mr. Kumar said. That was because of the infrastructure already existing in many zones. The expense on all the seven zones during the next 3-4 years would be between Rs. 450-500 crores. "Some of it has already been spent,'' he said. Small zones would improve the operational efficiency. "Moreover, we are carrying out the decisions taken by the Union Governments in 1996 as well as 1998. In fact, the changes have been much felt and long-pending.'' The North-West Railway zone and the East-Central Zone would become fully operational from October 1. On the announcement on lowering of airfares by Indian Airlines and Jet Airways, Mr. Kumar said the Railways would take into account the likely impact of it on the AC I Class traffic. "It is a new situation which could have some impact on the Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains,'' he said adding that concessions in fares could be considered area-wise to fight competition. The new train, flagged off by Mr. Kumar in the presence of Mr. Gehlot, the Leader of the Opposition, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the local MP, Girdharilal Bhargava, the local MLA, Udai Singh Rathore and the Railway Board chairman, Mr. Rana, left 15 minutes late than the scheduled time of 7.30 p.m. from the Jaipur railway station.
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