The unfulfilled promise of starting a new express train service between Radhikapur, a station near the Bangladesh border of North Dinajpur district and Anand Vihar Railway Station in Delhi has irked the locals here. The service was promised in the last Railway Budget and has not been started yet.
The former Union information and broadcasting minister, Mr Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, had said during the Pujas in Raiganj that the service would be inaugurated in the first week of November. “More than a month has passed since the announced date of inauguration but the railway authorities are yet to do anything in this regard,” the locals said.
With Mr Dasmunshi still indisposed, the locals are unsure when would the service start and would it start at all.
The Railway authorities had in the month of June identified the promised train as 2019 UP and 2020 DN Delhi -Radhikapur express and sent a time table at a glance and the construction of an extra platform at Raiganj Railway station had also begun at the same time raising hopes. The construction now remains stalled, which has created further disappointment among the locals.
The secretary of West Dinajpur Chambers of Commerce, Mr Jainarayan Somani, said: “Around 1 lakh labourers from different blocks of North Dinajur district go to Delhi for work. Apart from this, a large number of residents visit Delhi for business. The train would benefit all but the project work seems to dampened after Mr Dasmunshi fell ill.”
“We shall send a letter to the Railway minister Mr Laloo Prasad urging him to take immediate measure to start the service,” said Mr Tapan Chaudhury, a zonal railway users’ consultative committee member of the NF Railway.
The station superintendent of Raiganj railway station, Mr Manajitmoy Dutta said: “We received the proposed timetable of the train in June but we are not aware when the service would begin.”

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