The Railways have decided to hold periodic meetings to monitor progress of railway projects in the state to ensure their timely completion. The meetings will be held on the 1st and 15th of every month. In step, a co ordination committee has also been created to review the status of these projects, following which a monthly report will be sent to Rail Bhavan. The decision was taken a high powered meeting held on Friday by the union railway minister Mr Dinesh Trivedi with officials of the Railway Board.

Mr Dinesh Trivedi after the meeting said that "An important decision has been taken today to hold review meetings on the progress of the projects in West Bengal. These meetings will be held on the 1st and 15th of every month. A co ordination committee has been set up. At the end of every month, a report will be sent to the ministry of railways. This will ensure that projects are completed on time and funds allotted for them do not lapse.”

Mr Trivedi said state level issues connected with these projects will be taken care of by Jayanta Kumar Saha, special secretary, transport, Government of West Bengal, while he will directly look into ministry level issues connected with the projects. The Railway Board chairman Vinay Mittal and other board members, senior officials of the Eastern, South Eastern and Metro Railways also attended the meeting.

The railway minister said Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal chief minister, is monitoring the projects in the state. Mr Trivedi further said that "After all, all the projects are part of her Vision 2020 document that deals with all issues such as modernisation, safety and Public Private Partnership (PPP). My job is just to implement the projects in this document.”

At the meeting it was also decided to operationalise the automated signaling system for Kolkata's Metro Railway network in the next three months to improve frequency of service. An additional eight AC rakes are also being procured from ICF Perambur by end July.

(Sourced from ET)