Shatabdi begins its maiden run from Bathinda with 75 on board

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 18

On its maiden run from Bathinda to Delhi today, only 75 passengers boarded the Shatabdi Express today. Of the total 518 seats, 443 remained vacant.

Notably, in 2002, the service was stopped within a month of its launch as only 15 passengers boarded the train from Bathinda daily. It was started by the then Railways Minister Nitish Kumar.

During the flagging off ceremony today, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said it was up to the residents to make sure that the efforts for the resumption of the service were not wasted. “We don’t want that the Union Railway Minister calls us and says that the service is being discontinued due to poor response.”

Notably, the train has been started keeping in mind projects like the Guru Gobind Singh Refinery, National Fertilizer Limited (NFL), Talwandi Sabo thermal plant and the Army Cantonment.

However, experts feel that the train might not get the desired response this time too. They said as the Bathinda airport was likely to start functioning next month, well-to-do commuters would prefer air travel to rail journey.

The route on which the train is being run does not appear profitable either. From Bathinda to Delhi, the train will stop at Jakhal, Jind, Rohtak. The train service will mainly depend on passengers from Bathinda.

The main reason behind the non-feasibility of the train is that Bathinda lacks industry besides passengers who commute regularly from Bathinda to Delhi.

Desraj Chetriwal, president of the Bathinda Paschim Welfare Organisation, said it would have been much better if the government had considered their demand of a direct train between Varanasi and Bathinda.