Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu today announced a new train between Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency Varanasi that will have modern refurbished coaches.
The Mahamana Express is the only new train he announced in his Railway Budget 2016-17 apart from three superfast train services.
"Introduced a new train between Varanasi and Delhi, 'Mahamana Express' with modern refurbished coaches," he said in his budget speech in the Lok Sabha.
Varanasi is also among the pilgrim centres where stations will be beautified and passenger amenities improved.
"The great places of pilgrimage in India have a natural attraction for the Indian traveller.
"We intend taking up on priority the provision of passenger amenities and beautification of stations at pilgrimage centres including Ajmer, Amritsar, Bihar Sharif, Chengannur, Dwarka, Gaya, Haridwar, Mathura, Nagapattinam, Nanded, Nasik, Pali, Parasnath, Puri, Tirupati, Vailankanni, Varanasi and Vasco," he said.
Railways also intends to run Aastha circuit trains to connect important pilgrim centres.
In the his first Railway Budget last year, Prabhu had announced setting up of a Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Chair for Railway Technology at IIT (BHU), Varanasi.
This chair was to help in development of new materials to be used in all assets of Railways.
Prabhu today said this announcement has been "implemented".
