General manager of East Central Railway Lalit Chandra Trivedi on Friday inaugurated a ticket collector’s office-cum-ticket examiner’s lobby, a renovated and extended divisional cash-and-pay office and a 150-bed RPF barrack at Dhanbad station.

Dhanbad divisional railway manager Anil Kumar, additional divisional railway manager (infrastructure) Ashok Kumar and his counterpart in the co-ordination segment, B.K. Singh, were present on the occasion.

Earlier in the day, Trivedi visited Gomoh station and inaugurated an electric loco shed, a retiring room and a quick watering system to ensure adequate supply of water in trains.

Interacting with the media at Dhanbad station, Trivedi said: “We are introducing new facilities at different railway stations and upgrading the old ones for the convenience of the passengers as well as employees.”

On the upgradation of facility at Gomoh station, Trivedi said he inspected the infrastructure development underway at the electric loco shed, which was declared the biggest in the country last year.

“We have plans to increase the speed of trains to 150km per hour on 160km grand chord line section of Dhanbad division. A trial run for operating the trains at 130 km per hour has already been conducted. We can increase the speed further after more additional infrastructure is added,” Trivedi said.

A trial run of Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express at an increased speed was conducted between Howrah and Dhanbad stations on November 19 last year.

Asked about the long-pending demand for a direct train between Dhanbad and New Delhi, he said: “We are currently facing congestion problem and are therefore working on the development of dedicated freight corridor. After the completion of dedicated freight corridor, all goods trains will be routed through that. We will then have enough scope for the launch of more passenger trains.”

On the anti-encroachment drive carried out at different places in the Dhanbad division, including Dhanbad station, Trivedi said, “The first right on the railway land is of passengers. We remove encroachments to develop facilities for the passengers.”

On February 4, around 750 illegal makeshift shops on the railway land were razed in Gomoh.