Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami paid a courtesy visit to Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav in New Delhi on Tuesday. During his meeting, CM Dhami requested the rail minister to start various rail projects in the hill state bordering Uttar Pradesh. He urged the Union Railway Minister to start Haridwar to Varanasi Vande Bharat Express rail service. The Chief Minister said that this would provide great convenience to the devotees and tourists. Currently, Uttrakhand has no connectivity of Vande Bharat Express trains.

On the other hand, Varanasi is connected to New Delhi with one of the initial Vande Bharat trains. The Chief Minister also urged the Railway Minister to start a Janshatabdi train service between Tanakpur-Dehradun and Shatabdi Express train service between Delhi-Ramnagar, reported ANI. He also requested for operating a direct rail service between Ramnagar-Haridwar and Dehradun.

He said that Jim Corbett National Park, located under the Ramnagar area of Nainital, is a popular tourist destination with a lot of movement from Delhi. Therefore, it is very necessary to operate the Delhi-Ramnagar Shatabdi Express train service.

CM also requested the Railway Minister to approve the construction of the tunnel-based rail line project and the Rishikesh-Uttarkashi rail line project to connect Dehradun to Saharanpur with the railway via Mohand. Dhami highlighted the difficulties of travelling between New Delhi to Dehradun and said that at present one has to go through Haridwar to reach Dehradun from New Delhi by rail.

However, the railway line between Haridwar and Dehradun is a single lane as it passes through the Rajaji National Park, and hence, the speed of the train is highly controlled concerning wildlife safety. This results in added time to the journey, which can reduced if there’s a rail line from Dehradun to Saharanpur via Mohand.

He further stated that an adequate number of train services should be started from New Delhi, Mathura and Lucknow to Tanakpur for the remaining period of Purnagiri fair.

While discussing with the Railway Minister on rail services in Uttarakhand, the CM said, “at present Dehradun-Kathgodam Janshatabdi is the only rail service to connect Kumaon and Garhwal. Due to the presence of a large part of the Kumaon region as well as the Nepal border, the traffic of the people there also happens from Tanakpur only. That`s why it is necessary to operate a Janshatabdi train service between Tanakpur-Dehradun.”