Nitish asks Bansal to complete pending rail projects in Bihar

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar put forth his wish list before Union Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Monday and asked him to make provision for completing various pending projects in Bihar. “All railway projects proposed in Bihar were meant to be executed in a time frame, but that did not happen,” Kumar, who was himself the Railway minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet, said. He asked Bansal, who is scheduled to present the Rail Budget on Tuesday, to run some more trains from various destinations in Bihar, including Patna, to places like Delhi and to other states in view of the rush of passengers. [caption id=“attachment_639166” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. PTI[/caption] Kumar also emphasised on measures for railway safety, renewal of tracks and signal system that he said he had started during his reign a decade ago but his successor (Lalu Prasad) failed to look into “his desire to raise the revenue”. He also asked the minister to put in place a balance while announcing various measures for growth of Railways and catering to growing aspiration of the passengers and the states. The chief minister said the proposed railway bridge on Ganga between Digha and Saran and another bridge on the same river in Munger district were among several railway projects which have been pending for years and needed to be executed for improvement in railway connectivity in various parts of Bihar. He said he had taken up the two projects during discussion with Bansal recently. PTI