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What about the position of coaches? You had 13,109 coaches at that time. You have 30,000 coaches now. Today, according to your own estimation, you are short of 2728 coaches. You do not have enough coaches and you are running the old and dilapidated coaches without replacement. They are in a bad condition and worse is the case about wagons. You are short of coaches and wagons. In 1950-51, you had two lakh wagons. It is now 2,72,000 in terms of units. It is less than what was there in 1960-61. They had over three lakh wagons there and it had come down again. But the traffic is increasing by leaps and bounds. Your infrastructure is not developing and your rolling stock is not increasing but your traffic is increasing. Till 1996-97, only 54 kilometres of new line was opened and the conversion was done only on 1364 kilometres. This is the rate of expansion. How can you meet your target by the end of the Ninth Plan? What is happening really? It means, till recently, they were justifying by telling, "Oh! we have achieved wonderful productivity. With the existing assets, we are moving so much. That shows the capacity of the Railways to absorb all these things. We are so resilient and we are so strong that we can carry with these things." We were repeatedly telling that you were flagging the system. It was not higher productivity but just flagging.

It is a mere mockery of your expansion programme. we cannot go on like this. Therefore, please revise the allocations for projects which are in the final stages, give them little more amount, finish them and then go for the next project. Demands grants will be there from the MPs and from other sources. Simply because some pressure is there, you approve a line, give ten thousand rupees and satisfy people and get Tali-bajao during the Budget time, then forget about it. That is not the way to run the Railways and extend the Railway line. Same is the case with Dharmavaram-Pakala gauge conversion and electrification projects very little amounts have been sanctioned.

Sir, when the train was introduced, we thought that it will be a superfast train which will run daily. But actually, it was neither a superfast train nor is it running daily. It takes more time than the train which was running on that section. I wanted a train from Bankura to Howrah. In my letter, I mentioned that no additional rake is required as it is already there and the decision is to be taken only by the Railway Board to extend that train upto Howrah.

19.00 hrs. Much depends on the Shalimar coach terminal. It was sanctioned ten years back. Twelve platforms were to be constructed. But not a single platform has come up so far. I do not find sufficient allocation for the coach terminal at Shalimar or for the South-Eastern Railway. The trains of South-Eastern Railway should be taken to the Shalimar terminal. The capacity of Howrah station is already congested. It cannot be increased. But there is no sufficient allocation. He has also seen it. We visited the Shalimar coach terminal together. We have seen the progress of work for the last ten years. It is nothing. How can there be progress unless the money is allocated? I do not know what is the programme of the Railways. I also want to refer to Tarakeshwar-Arambagh, New Jalpaiguri-New Bongoigaon lines for conversion from metre-gauge to broad-gauge. There is a demand for electrification from Krishnanagar to Lalgola. The district of Murshidabad is the most neglected district in respect of railways. There is a single line. There is no electrified traction. The electrification of Krishnanagar-Lalgola section is needed urgently.

Further, I would like to request for a Coaching Terminal at Titlagarh junction, an over-bridge at Titlagarh station, a rake unloading platform at Balangir railway station, introduction of a DMU train between Titlagarh and Rayagada to solve the problems faced by daily passengers of Balangir, Kalahandi, Rayagada and Koraput districts, introduction of an Express train between Sambhalpur and Nagpur via Titlagarh, restoration of Day Express train facility from Titlagarh junction, like the Link Express to Raipur on Fridays and the Samata Express to Vizianagram on Mondays and lastly, the conversion of the Nuapada-Gunupur narrow gauge line to broad gauge, which has been included in the Budget should be extended up to Rayagada and the token Budgetary provision of Rs.1000 should be raised to a realistic amount.