Rail budget expectations: Pilgrims want more trains to Rameswaram

Rameswaram: With the Railway budget to be part of the Union budget for the first time to be presented by Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley on February 1, a cross-section of pilgrims and passengers here on Monday have demanded more trains to the pilgrim-island of Rameswaram from different parts of the country as the existing trains are not sufficient to cater to a larger volume of people traveling to this holy place.

In this year’s budget the Finance Minister should announce new trains to Rameswaram, which could include a daytime express train between Chennai and Rameswaram, a plea made by former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, they said.

Passengers’ here also demanded extension of the Kollam Express, which comes to Madurai, and Silambam Express, which comes to Manamadurai, be extended up to Rameswaram.

A pilgrim from Delhi Narendra Kumar, said apart from additional trains to Rameswaram, the quality of catering service should be improved at railway stations, besides ensuring hygienic drinking water and clean maintenance of toilets at stations.

Another pilgrim from Visakhapatnam, Gurumurthy, urged that common amenities at Rameswaram station should be further improved. “Security and basic hygiene are lacking at many of the railway stations en route,” he complained.

Balakrishnan, another pilgrim from Sholapur in Maharashtra rued that when he had been to Kanyakumari, before reaching here, he had to agonizingly wait for an hour, as there were not sufficient number of public toilets in Kanyakumari.
“Finally I had to relieve myself in the open,” he cried, adding, pilgrims from outside the State were put to such needless hardship.

The maintenance of toilets inside the trains was also so bad and the coming budget should address all these basic issues plaguing the Railways, he added.