BY TC News Desk
Agartala, June 13, 2023: People are suffering due to non-improvement of railway services in the state and CITU will make a demand to Northeast Frontier Railway to improve the quality of service, CITU state General Secretary Shankar Prasad Datta complained on Tuesday.
In a press conference at CITU state headquarters here on Tuesday afternoon, Datta said that the concerned ministry has not taken the initiative to double line from Dharmanagar to Agartala till now. Consequently, people’s time is wasted. People failed to reach their destinations in less time due to rail closures. Therefore, it is demanded that the double rail line from Dharmanagar to Agartala be taken immediately.
He also said earlier that there was a direct rail service from Sabroom to Dharmanagar. Now there is no direct rail service. Rail services between Sabroom – Agartala and Agartala – Sabroom have been started. Two days a week there is a train from Dharmanagar to Silchar which is running every day of the week as before. It has been stopped daily from Dharmanagar to Silchar during COVID. So CITU is demanding to start the service every day.
Besides, for the sake of technological development, the demand for electrification of railway services will be submitted to the Ministry of Railways. Another pair of rail services between Sabroom – Agartala and Agartala – Sabroom are being demanded for passenger services. The demand to increase the number of coaches in the train will also be raised. Otherwise, people have to stand and travel on the train. Besides this, he demanded to keep the coaches clean. He also said about the railway service in the press conference that the people of South Tripura district, Gomati district and Sepahijala districts have to come to Agartala to run the express train because express trains travel from Agartala city. People have to come and stay in Agartala city the night before. So he demanded to run express trains with people from Sabroom.
CITU state general secretary said that he will go to Maligaon in Guwahati to make demands to the General Manager of Northeast Railway Frontier for these demands.
Meanwhile, the state’s former Transport minister and CITU state president Manik Dey said that improved rail services are being launched to increase speed in other states of the country, and trains that are not running are being sent to Tripura state. The poor quality of service being provided shows that Ministry has no compassion for the people of the state and disrespecting the people of the state. He criticized the work of the railway line at Akhaura border and said that in 2016, the then railway minister of the country, Chief Minister of Tripura and the railway minister of Bangladesh came and started the work of the railway line. The work was supposed to be completed in the half year 2018-19 and gifted to the people. But it has been seen that the work is not finished even in 2023. And the biggest thing is that even the Akhaura border has not been dual-gauge. As a result, Manik Dey expressed the opinion that people will suffer.
