Terming Uttar Pradesh as a growth engine, Union Railway and Coal minister Piyush Goyal declared several projects for the state including the setting up of a Rail refurbishment factory in Jhansi, a Rail auxiliary park in Fatehpur and converting the Mailani-Sitapur link connecting Dudhwa and Katarniya Ghat national parks as ‘Heritage Rail Track’.
The minister also announced that the capacity of Rail Coach Factory at Lalganj (Rae Bareli) of producing 600-700 coaches per year will be increased to 3000 coaches per annum the in next three years. Besides, the long pending promise of setting up an Electric Loco Shed in Gorakhpur would be taken up on a war footing.
Goyal made these announcements during a session on ‘Ease of doing business’ at the Investors Summit on Thursday, in the presence of Chief Minister Yogi Aditnayath.
The Railway minister said that the present meter gauge track connecting Dudhwa and Katarniya Ghat forest areas will be converted into heritage track and old coaches will be replaced by brand new coaches.
Talking about Refurbishment factory at Jhansi, he said that it would be set up in 300 acres of land which has already been acquired by the Railways.
“This Jhansi unit would be unique in the sense that it will refurbish general class coaches as till date only upper class coaches were refurbished by the Railways,” Goyal said.
“The Fatehpur auxiliary park will support the Railways. It will not only act as auxillary unit for Rail Coach Factory but also of Indian Railways,” he said.
Lauding Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Goyal said that there has been a paradigm shift in the quality of governance in UP in the last one year. “Yogi brought about a new meaning to development where superstition and myth has no place, “ he commented.
“No Chief Minister in the past dared to visit Noida but Yogi ji broke that jinx which shows the confidence he has. Come and invest in this state because UP is a modern state where the leadership thinks globally,” Goyal said adding that this was a safe state where law and order was guaranteed.
Terming the Investors Summit as a ‘Kumbh of investors’, the Railway minister said that it was a Kumbh of prosperity and entrepreneurs.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath thanked Goyal for attending the session and presented a detailed report on how the government has made ease of doing business in the state more investor- friendly.
“We worked on the law and order front and the result has been very encouraging. We also did lot in the area of ease of doing business and now UP is the seventh best destination in the country,” Yogi said.