Passenger trains to have walkie talkies

The announcement comes after the November train tragedy in Punjab8217;s Khanna, in which over 250 people were killed. In due course, walkie talkie contact facilities will also be provided in goods trains, he said, adding ultra-sonic testing had been introduced to remove faults in maintenance of tracks, which would be given top priority along with safety and cleanliness measures.

Kumar said the Agra-Bandikui section of the Central Railway, which had been put under the BOT scheme for development with private funding, would now be provided with necessary funds by the railways.In the first phase, tencrores have been sanctioned for the project, work on which will commence in January. He said Agra was one of the eight new divisions created out of the old ones. A total of 13 crores will be spent on the development of the division, he said. B S Rawat, Lok Sabha MP from Agra, asked to introduce direct trains between Agra and Lucknow and Agra and Allahabad to meet the demand. Kumar said that 106 new passenger train bogies had been added which were equivalent to about 20 new trains. About starting new trains, he said against 36 per cent availability, the demand was 400 per cent as compared to now.