Former PM Vajpayee’s Village Connected With Railways On Eve Of His 91st Birthday
24 December, Agra
As a mark of tribute to the veteran politician Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his 91st birthday, Indian Railways on the eve of his birthday today launched passenger train service from Bateshwar, the ancestral village of former PM.
Union minister of state for railways Manoj Sinha along with Union minister of state for HRD and local Agra MP Ramashanker Kateharia flagged off the first passenger train at Bateshwar this afternoon in presence of hundred of local people and railway officials.
Bharat Ratna Vajpayee’s first exposure to politics began in Bateshwar in August 1942, when he and his elder brother Prem were arrested here for 23 days during the Quit India movement. Locals say Mr Vajpayee always remembered the difficulties he had to face to reach his village from Agra, which is why he decided to connect Agra with the village by train as soon as he became the Prime Minister.
The train project, which the then Prime Minister visualized in 1999 , took more than 15 years to complete, during which the originally Rs 110 crore budget stretched to Rs 430 crore.
The 125 km-long Agra-Bhandai-Shamshabad-Fatehabad-Baah-Bateshwar-Udi-Etawah track was commissioned on June 10, 2015, soon after the NDA government came to power, after commissioner railway safety (CRS) gave clearance for freight trains to be operational. But due to technical glitches pointed out by CRS between Udi and Etawah, the clearance for passenger traffic operation was halted.
According to Railways, a total of 11 stations on the route will help thousands of rural people to commute daily between Agra and Etawah. With the start of the passenger train operation , many trains going towards Tundla before reaching Agra will be diverted towards Udi from Etawah, which will reduce the time of travel.
The single broad-gauge track has 40 manned level crossings. Initially, the proposal had been tabled that only one passenger train was to ply on this route per day, but later, it was decided that trains on Mathura-Patna and Mathura-Allahabad routes will also diverted to this route to de-congest Agra-Jaipur route.