Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami demanded new trains and rail projects for Uttarakhand during his meeting with the Union Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in New Delhi on Tuesday. In the meeting he requested that a new Jan Shatabdi train should be sanctioned between Tanakpur- Dehradun and a Shatabdi express should ply between New Delhi and Ramnagar. Dhami told the union minister that a tunnel based rail project connecting Dehradun to Saharanpur via Mohand should be approved and the railway ministry should examine the Uttarkashi- Rishikesh rail project and sanction it.

The CM also requested that the Vande Bharat express train should be sanctioned between Haridwar to Varanasi. This service would provide major assistance to the pilgrims and tourists, he said.

He demanded that the union government should bear the entire cost of the Kichha- Khatima rail project. The CM requested Ramnagar- Haridwar- Dehradun service and said that special trains from New Delhi, Mathura and Lucknow should be operated to Tanakpur during Purnagiri fair.

Dhami said that at present one has to go through Haridwar to travel by rail from Dehradun to New Delhi. Since Haridwar-Dehradun rail line is single lane and most of it is under Rajaji National Park, the speed of the train is also highly controlled from the point of view of the safety of wildlife due to which the entire journey takes relatively longer time. “If the rail line from Dehradun to Saharanpur via Mohand, some part of which will pass through a tunnel, is constructed, then the rail traffic between New Delhi and Dehradun will also become faster. As a result, apart from facilitating the movement of tourists in the state, commercial activities will also get a boost,’’ he suggested.