Admn goes from village to village to book passengers for Nanded train

JALANDHAR: The district administration had to reportedly go from village to village in Kartarpur for the past two days so as to ensure that the adequate number of seats got filled for a scheduled train to Nanded under the CM Tirath Yatra Scheme.

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 22

The district administration had to reportedly go from village to village in Kartarpur for the past two days so as to ensure that the adequate number of seats got filled for a scheduled train to Nanded under the CM Tirath Yatra Scheme. The train is to be flagged off tomorrow.

Since less than half the number of the seats only could be booked till yesterday, they were even planning to cancel the train this time. However, despite it being a Saturday and a non-working day, SDM-2 Varinder Pal Singh Bajwa, along with tehsildars and other officials from the Revenue Department, today went to various villages in the constituency to promote the scheme and ensure that the target of sending 1,000 passengers was completed.

Asked about the same, Bajwa confirmed that he had gone to villages. He, however, said, “We usually do not face such a problem, but it perhaps came as people are not really interested in leaving their home during Diwali days. The harvesting of paddy is also on.

The time is also right for cultivated potatoes.”

The other officials, who accompanied the SDM, had more reasons, “There is change of weather. Vector-borne diseases are on the rise and people do not want to travel at this point of time. But we finally managed to fill 1,000 seats by convincing many residents”.

Damanvir Phillaur, YAD leader and son of MLA Sarwan Singh Phillaur, however, differed, “There has been no problem at all. We are flooded with requests from people wanting to board the train. We had to rather convince some people to wait this time and go in the next train.”

Buses for Vaishno Devi

Meanwhile, two Punjab Roadways buses were flagged off as part of the CM Tirath Yatra scheme that began today. Both buses with about 50 passengers each went to Vaishno Devi. While one was launched by Baldev Khaira, SAD constituency in-charge at Phillaur, the other started from Jalandhar (North) where it was flagged off by BJP MLA KD Bhandari.