Tourists can now make rail bookings at Dabolim airport

The tourism industry in Goa has received a fillip of sorts with Railways Minister Ram Vilas Paswan announcing that henceforth, rail bookings can be done from terminals right inside Panjim's Dabolim airport.

Harassed foreigners who have till date had to rush from airport to train terminal -- with its long queues, cut-throat touts and all other attendant evils -- would, had they heard the announcement, have raised a cheer.

Paswan's timing was spot on -- he was speaking at the ceremony to inaugurate the railcar facility on the Konkan railway sector.

From his words, it appeared that the minister's overall gameplan was to bring some system to the railways, which in terms of sheer miles covered ranks second in the world but which, in terms of wasted infrastructure, probably heads the list.

Paswan in fact as much as admitted that considerable funds were being wasted due to lapses in production, operations and maintenance. Which incidentally was the spur behind his recent actions in first suspending seven officials attached to his ministry in Delhi, then announcing action against the general manager of the production unit at Perambur Loco Works for providing railcars that looked old and out of date, for the prestigious Konkan railway project. "We are fixing responsibilities now -- that is the best way to avoid wastage of public money," he said.

A decision, he added, was imminent about amendments to the archaic British act governing safety measures. The act, which does not take into account the latest technology, has effectively stalled the commissioning of the 24-km stretch in the Vasco-Londa sector in Goa on the Konkan railway. Changes, the railway minister said, are imminent, and designed to bring the act more current with existing technology.

Apparently pleased with the Konkan Railway Corporation, Paswan spoke in favour of creating similar corporations for upcoming projects, especially in metropolitan cities. One such corporation, he said, will be formed in Delhi to build a multi-miillion suburban rail network, while the West Bengal government has been permitted to form a similar corporation, for a similar network, in Calcutta.

Denying that his ministry had objected to such a corporation being set up in Bombay to run the suburban network in the metrop, Paswan said, "The proposal of the state government to hand over even the running of the railways to the corporation is what is being objected to -- and that too because several inter-state trains also run on the same rail lines as the suburban trains in Bombay."