Punjab BJP President Kamal Sharma has met the Union Minister of State for Railways Shri Manoj Kumar Sinha and has taken up the matter of the pending new Rail Line between Ferozepur and Patti measuring 25.47-km. Shri Sharma has also requested the Minister to look into the ten other requests pertaining to the Railway Ministry. Giving details in this regard, Shri Sharma said that he has met Shri Sinha in the national capital and discussed several railway related issues. The meeting started with Shri Sharma extending his thanks to the Minister for extending the Delhi-Bathinda Shatabdi to Ferozepur.Giving the details of the meeting, Shri Sharma said, I brought to the note of Shri Sinha that Ministry of Railways had written a Demi Official (DO) letter dated April 11, 2013 to the Punjab CM S. Parkash Singh Badal regarding the construction of the new Railway Line between Ferozepur and Patti measuring 25.47-km. As per the survey report, the cost of construction was assessed as Rs 147.28 cr in year 2009-10.
The Punjab Government had in principle agreed to provide free of cost land involved in the Ferozepur-Mallanwala-Patti-Amritsar rail link."Shri Sharma further said that he also briefed Shri Sinha that with this rail link, Jammu will be linked to Gujrat directly and the longer via's will be curtailed. "Punjab CM had recently requested the Ministry to clarify that the land price will be borne by the Punjab Government and the construction cost would be borne by the Union Railway Ministry", he told the Minister. Shri Sharma said that he had a very good meeting with Shri Sinha and he was very positive.Shri Sharma said that apart from this, he has also given Shri Sinha a list of the ten important requests made by the Divisional Railway Manager, Ferozepur. Besides the connectivity between Ferozepur-Patti, the requests in the list includes daily express train between Ferozepur-Haridwar via KKP-BTI; requirement of additional DMUs services in Abohar-Fazilka-Abohar, Ferozepur-Jalandhar, Ferozepur-Ludhiana and Jalandhar-Jammu route; daily express train between Ferozepur-Katra via JUC-PTKC and tri-weekly express train between Ferozepur-New Delhi via JUC-LDH.