Union Minister for Railways and Coal, Piyush Goyal, after flagging off a new Rajdhani Express from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) on Saturday afternoon, said, “We got to see a majboor leadership in The Accidental Prime Minister and a majboot leadership in Uri - The surgical strike . I know these are fictional movies and should not be taken at face value. But both show the difference between a weak and a strong system.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month had used these words to compare the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government with the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Mr. Goyal said that just like “double engines” were used to increase the speed of trains, the governments at the Centre and the State were pushing development in the State, and in Mumbai. He said ₹4,345 crore was invested by Railways in the State under the current government, as opposed to ₹1,171 crore between 2009-2014. “Projects worth ₹75,000 crore are going to be invested on the Mumbai suburban railway network. Since the first train ran from CSMT to Thane, there hasn’t been such a large investment in Mumbai,” Mr. Goyal said.
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First on CR
The new Rajdhani Express, which will run bi-weekly between CSMT and Hazrat Nizamuddin in Delhi, is the first to run on the Central Railway (CR). “This will reduce the travel time by 5.5 hours and areas which did not have a Rajdhani will now get one,” Mr. Goyal said. The other two Rajdhanis starting from the city run on Western Railway (WR).