Tarkesh Kumar Ojha, Kharagpur
On Saturday, a protest was held at Panshkuda station on behalf of the Civil Resistance Forum, South Eastern Railway, Kharagpur Division branch on the demand to start all the closed trains immediately during the Corona period. Under which there was a strong opposition to the resumption of many important trains on the Haldia and Digha routes and the conversion of hundreds of passenger trains like Bhadrak Passenger into express trains. Passengers, including a representative of the Kharagpur branch of the South Eastern Railway of the Civil Resistance Forum, participated in the program.
Signatures of people along with common passengers were also taken. This signed demand letter was given to the General Manager through Panshkuda Station Manager. In the protest meeting at Panskuda station, Madhusudan Bera, President of Civil Resistance Forum, Kharagpur Division, Saroj Maiti, Joint Secretary of the Committee and Office Secretary Tapan Nayak were also present. The Panshkuda station manager promised to send the demand to the higher authorities.
The leaders said that recently the Railway Department has announced an increase in the passenger fares of trains in the name of station development charges. Ministry of Railways has issued this circular on 31/12/2021. Under which it is proposed to give Rs 10 to 50 more per person. GST will also be added to this. The Central Government had announced the National Monetization Pipeline (MNP) scheme a few months back. Where the target is to recover six lakh crore rupees in the next four years.
For this, the central government plans to hand over water rates to state-owned for-profit companies to special industrialists. It has about 400 stations, 40 long-distance trains, five toy trains including Darjeeling, and 151 pairs on 109 routes in India. Planning to hand over the trains to private owners. All those closed trains including Ghatshila Local, Jhargram Local, Belda-Howrah Local, Adra-Howrah-Shiromani Passenger, Howrah-Tata Passenger, Digha-Howrah Kandari Express should be started without delay in the interest of passengers.