It is good that Dhenkanal people shall continue to get facility of the Puri-LTT SF Exp. But why a much more large & important station Durg is left out?
A series of wonderful facts,
(1) 22866/65 Puri-LTT SF Exp which connects 18 destinations with 17 stops during its 1856km journey and does not stop at Durg, which is an important junction.
(2) Only two stops...
more... of this train (NGP & Raipur) have more population than Durg-Bhiai twincity (11lac-2011). Most of the remaining 15 stops have substantially lesser population.
(3) Only 3 Rlys Stns give more traffic/revenue than Durg RS i.e. NGP, Raipur & Bhubaneswar most of the rest rest give substantially less revenue/traffic.
(4) Other train i.e. Hatia-LTT SF express which stops at Durg, share same time slot with 22866/65 Puri-LTT SF Exp. throughout the common run from Jharsuguda - LTT (about 1450 kms).
(5) Puri-LTT leaves Durg at 19:00, and there is no train from Durg for a long duration of 15 hrs for Mumbai i.e. from 12:25 noon (Gnaneswari) to 3:25 (Geetanjali) early morning next day, i.e stop is very much required at Durg. More over Durg-Mumbai traffic is also perennially high.
(6) As per station details released by IR, way back in FY 2014-15, the passenger revenue of Durg was 64 crores and parcel revenue was 5.8 crores i.e. total revenue of 69.8 crores. In current financial year this figure shall be near 80 crore Rs. Still the station is not classified as A1 class (revenue above 60 crore Rs).
(7) Bhilai-PH is A class station with current annual revenue of about 40 crores, official figure-2014-15 was Rs 33 crores. Short distance passengers of this station use Durg RS for long distance journeys esp. in SF trains. This also adds to the importance of Durg RS.
(8) More than 95% of rails laid over IR network had been produced in Durg-Bhilai area i.e. Bhilai Steel Plant.
(9) Much needed expansion of Coach care center of Durg, which was earlier planned is also not being granted, that too in spite of huge requirement of extending a few trains and introduce new trains from here.
Isn’t it an irony that Puri-LTT with 17 stops & similar train BBS-LTT on the same time slot does not stops at Durg ?
Are stops granted only on political activism and market demand/ necessity have no importance?
Or is there any intentional injustice inflected on important twin-city of Durg-Bhilai?, which is aptly called mini India as people from almost all states of India peacefully reside here.
