Banerjee kicks off two railway projects in West Bengal

DANKUNI - Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday laid the foundation stones of two factories for manufacturing electric and diesel engine components in this West Bengal town.

The factories will be set up near Dankuni railway station on about 70 acres, of which the electric engine component factory, supplying the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in Burdwan, would require 40 acres.

The remaining 30 acres would be utilised for manufacturing components and sub-assembling locomotives for feeding the Diesel Locomotive Works at Varanasi.

Speaking on the occasion, Banerjee said 100,000 people will get direct or indirect employment in the factories and the ancillaries that will come up in the area.

The estimated cost of the project was Rs.110 crore of which the Railway Board has already sanctioned Rs.20.65 crore.

Banerjee said no land has to be acquired for the project as the railways itself had land in the area.

“Ancillary industries will also come up. Dankuni will usher in industrial resurgence in the state,” she said.

Dankuni will also be a terminal point of the Dedicated Eastern Freight Corridor stretching upto Ludhiana in Punjab, she said.

“The final locational survey over 526 km from Somnagar to Dankuni is progressing,” she said.

The 1,279-km corridor will pass through Andal, Gomoh, Gaya, Mughalsarai, Saharanpur and Ambala.

Banerjee also announced that a railway training institute would be established here, with the successful ones absorbed in the organisation as apprentices.