Suresh Prabhu inaugurates Railway projects in Kolkata

Addressing the gathering at the function , Prabhu said that West Bengal is one of the major contributors to GDP and is the gateway to East Asia and South East Asia.

If India has to be part of the new growth process in East Asia, West Bengal must grow faster and for that improved connectivity in the form of Waterways, Roadways, Railways and Sea ports is the need of the hour, he said.

Prabhu observed that in the Rail Budget 2015 an attempt was made to provide quick benefits to Eastern part of the country which has huge natural resources but lack investment to take advantage of its potential.

Various measures to declog projects, doubling of tracks, modernizing signals and automatized cargo handling were taken and 39 announcements of budgets were implemented in record time. Shri Prabhu stated that all the new projects are being monitored online to ensure speedy completion.

He also said that West Bengal got almost double the amount of budget than what it got in the last year of UPA government, amounting to more that Rs.2300 crores.

He said that a new regime for station development will be announced soon and called upon partners to extend help in the form of financing, sharing technology and expertise in improving rail services as it requires huge investment.

Prabhu also said that he would meet the Chief Minister of West Bengal shortly to resolve various impediments to railway projects so that West Bengal can emerge as a commercial capital of the country.

He said that in the next five years it is targeted to increase the freight carrying capacity of Railways from one billion metric tonnes to 1.5 billion metric tonnes.

Complementing the officials and staff of railways for their contribution in observing Rail Yatri Upbhokta Pakhwada, he said that new projects worth