Patna: Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, along with Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, on Monday flagged off seven trains - three Amrit Bharat Expresses and four passenger trains - in Bihar.
While Vaishnaw attended the function through video conference, Choudhary turned up at Patna Junction station.
The addition of the three Amrit Bharat trains — Muzaffarpur-Charlapalli, Chhapra-Anand Vihar and Darbhanga-Ajmer — has taken the total number of such trains to 30 across the country, 26 of which originate from Bihar.
This, the government said, is an important step towards realising the vision of “Viksit Bihar Se Viksit Bharat” (developed India through a developed Bihar). The other four new trains are Patna-Buxar Passenger, Jhajha-Danapur Passenger, Nawada-Patna Passenger, and Patna-Islampur Passenger.
Speaking via video conference, Vaishnaw said that the new trains will provide a new level of connectivity in Bihar. “Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office in 2014, he has prioritised the railways, with a special focus on the state.... Before 2014, the annual railway budget for Bihar was only around Rs 1,000 crore, whereas today it stands at about Rs 10,000 crore,” he said.
Vaishnaw said that Bihar’s railway network has been fully electrified, and 1,899 km of new track has been laid.