Patna, (Bihar Times): Congress president Sonia Gandhi will inaugurates work on the 1,805 km-long Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor project in Dehri-on-Sone in Rohtas district of Bihar on February 10. Railway minister Lalu Yadav will be accompanying her.
 
In the last two to three years rail freight traffic has grown by 8 to 11 per cent and is projected to touch 1100 million tonnes by the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan.
 
Reports from New Delhi said that the Rs 30,000 crore Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) project, one of the flagship projects of railways, is envisaged to carry the projected volume of freight traffic.
 
The Eastern Freight Corridor project aims to link Dankuni in West Bengal with Ludhiana in Punjab, the Western Corridor links Delhi with Mumbai.

The traffic on the Eastern Corridor mainly comprises coal for the power plants in the northern region of UP, Delhi, Haryana,  Punjab, and parts of Rajasthan from the Eastern Coal fields, finished steel,  food grains, cement, fertilisers, lime stone from Rajasthan, to steel plants in the east.

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It appears that the central government wants to fool the people of Bihar once again. Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav proposed to start a bullet train from Delhi to Patna and other cities. Nothing wrong in that. But what about high speed rail/road connectivity of cities in Bihar with a Port (offcourse not the dying Calcutta port)? Such connectivity would built up favorable environment for new businesses.

Our Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission,  Montek Singh Ahluwalia and our prime minister (both punjabis), makes sure that Ludhiana gets regular supply of coal, but  don't they have any responsibility towards Bihar?  Bihar is yet to receive even the flood relief fund. They work for India or just Delhi or Punjab? If we look at the map showing allocation of new IITs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology ), we find that there are so many IITs clustered around Delhi. Things have been systematically designed to carry maximum benefit to one's home state in the name of the nation. How does one counter these regionalist-casteist lobbies for the benefit of the nation as a whole? Why does Delhi wants to keep Bihar and Jharkhand poor?

People of Bihar should demonstrate actively when the Congress president comes to Rohtas. The message must go.

- Manoj Kumar
manoj.me@gmail.com