Project bonanza for North Bengal

Kolkata: North Bengal, a Congress stronghold where the Trinamool is on a sticky wicket, came for particular attention from Mamata Banerjee. In the recent past, she has come under fire from Congress leaders for ignoring the region.
Apart from new trains and services, Mamata announced water-bottling plants under the PPP mode at Malda and Farakka, apart from a number of hospitals. Of the four multi-disciplinary training centres to be set up across the country, two will be in Cooch Behar and Malda.
New Jalpaiguri will get a rail axle factory that will reduce the railways’ dependence on imports.
Of the 94 Adarsh stations planned across the country, 28 are in Bengal alone. Bolpur and Kharagpur have joined the list of stations that are to be developed into world-class terminals. As many as 22 stations in the state will be converted into multi-functional complexes.
A coach factory will be set up at Kanchrapara, and a diesel multiple unit (DMU) factory under JV/PPP mode at Sankrail, Howrah. The Kharagpur workshop will be developed into the country’s first centre of excellence in wagon prototyping, Mamata announced. Work on the eastern leg of the dedicated freight corridor will start in Dankuni in Hooghly this year.
Locations in Bengal figured in almost every paragraph of Mamata’s speech. Every time, an MP objected to the “Bengal centric budget”, Mamata would brush it off in her street-fighter way.
At least one of Mamata’s announcements evoked a sense of nostalgia among the elderly who have travelled by train from the Northeast to Kolkata before 1971. She announced a rail link between Akhaura in Bangladesh and Agartala, and a special train — Sanskriti Express — from Kolkata to Dhaka on the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. This will provide a shorter route from Bengal to the North-East via Bangladesh. She also announced a new line from Jogbani to Biratnagar in Nepal.
In a bid too woo urban voters, Mamata announced four extensions of the Kolkata Metro and more suburban trains on the Howrah and Sealdah sector and two more women specials.
The list of trains for Bengal seems to be an unending one. Five of the 16 Bharat Tirth trains will start from Howrah. The state has also got three Duronto trains and 17 of the 53 express trains. Five of the nine new railway line projects are also in Bengal.
It was not just about trains, tracks and factories. Mamata crossed boundaries to announce a sports academy in Kolkata (one of five across the country) and two museums on Rabindranath Tagore at Howrah and Bolpur.
Finally, she came good on her promise to give a job to each family that gives up their land for the freight corridor...published in TOI on 25.02.10