OREANDA-NEWS. The Minister for Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu flagged off the new Shatabdi Express train between New Delhi and Bhatinda at a ceremony held at New Delhi Railway station today. Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Hon’ble Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences, Govt. of India, Smt Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Hon’ble Minister for Food Processing Industries, Govt. of India, Shri Manoj Sinha, Hon’ble Minister of State for Railways, Govt. of India, Smt. Meenakshi Lekhi, Hon’ble Member of Parliament(Lok Sabha), Shri Sher Singh Ghubaya, Hon’ble Member of Parliament(Lok Sabha)Shri Balwinder Singh Bhunder, Hon’ble Member of Parliament(Rajya Sabha),  were the Guests of Honour on the occasion.  The top executives from the Railway present on the occasion include- Sh. Arunendra Kumar, Chairman Railway Board, Member Engineering, Railway Board Shri V.KGupta, General Manager, Northern Railway, Shri Pradeep Kumar, Divisional Railway Manager, Northern Railway, Delhi, Shri A. K. Sachan & Senior Railway Officials. 

Following the inaugural run, regular services of the 12047/12048 New Delhi-Bhatinda-New Delhi Shatabdi Express will commence from 20.12.2014 as per the following programme:-

 

12047

New Delhi-Bhatinda

Station

12048

Bhatinda-New Delhi

Arr

Dep

Arr

Dep

-

0900

New Delhi

2110

-

1016

1018

Rohtak

1940

1942

1114

1116

Jind

1838

1840

1216

1218

Jakhal

1737

1740

1244

1246

Mansa

1658

1700

1345

-

Bathinda

-

1620

  

Having one executive chair car and seven air-conditioned chair car coaches, this Shatabdi Express will run on every on Monday and Saturday in both directions.

 There are presently 14 pairs of Shatabdi services on Northern Railway serving 11 important cities viz. - Bhopal, Lucknow, Ajmer, Dehradun, Amritsar( 2 pairs), Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Moga, Kathgodam, Kanpur and Kalka( 2 pairs). The Bhatinda-New Delhi Shatabdi is the 15th Shatabdi Express to run on the zone. The running of this train is an important value-addition to the fleet of passenger services in this area.

 It is envisaged that the Railways’ role in bringing enhanced inter-city connectivity and thereby greater mobility through the new Shatabdi services between New Delhi-Bhatinda would mark another turning point to the hinterland of Punjab and to the developing cities in the vicinity.