For now, Puri off passenger train grid
Bhubaneswar: The East Coast Railway (ECoR) on Saturday decided that trains starting and terminating in Puri will now do so in Bhubaneswar till further orders. It took the decision following an advice from the state government.
Recently, the Indian Railways announced to run 200 trains with a new time table from June 1. Out of these, nine trains, including two originating and terminating in Puri, will run through Odisha.
On June 1, the Purushottam Express will originate from Bhubaneswar instead of Puri. Similarly, Bhubaneswar station will be the originating and terminating point for Sealdah-Puri Duronto Express. “But empty rakes of the trains will be moved to Puri for maintenance. Puri has a coaching depot to handle several trains,” official sources said.
Last year, the ECoR ran around 200 special trains for Rath Yatra besides the regular trains. But this year, even scheduled trains have been stopped.
Sources said the state government does not want Puri to be crowded ahead of Snana Jatra or Rath Yatra. “The actual reason for the decision is yet to be known. But the government might have taken this step to discourage crowd during the festival,” said a senior government official.
Puri king Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb on Saturday said it will not be possible to allow devotees to gather at the Badadanda in Puri during these festivals in view of the pandemic situation. He requested government to take precautionary steps.
In a related development, the ECoR may run five intra-state trains in Odisha by the first week of June. It will include two inter-city and three special trains. “There may be changes in the number and schedule,” said a senior railway official. “We can maintain social distancing in trains. It is low cost and easy mode of commuting, so intra-state train services should start,” said Dilip Sahu from Ganjam.
The Odisha government has already allowed running of intra-state train services. Bus services were started on Thursday.
About 40 pairs of trains, including local passengers and inter-city express, were being run in the ECoR jurisdiction till March 22. The train services were stopped due to lockdown restrictions.