Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday flagged off the Vande Bharat express connecting Howrah and New Jalpaiguri in the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee virtually.
The event was also attended by Governor C V Ananda Bose and Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
The nation’s seventh Vande Bharat express train between Howrah-New Jalpaiguri (NJP) has been flagged off through video conferencing by the Prime Minister minutes after the last rite of his mother Hiraben Modi.
Modi took part in the flag-off from Gujarat as the train left Howrah station in Bengal.
The train will cover a distance of around 550km and will take a little more than seven and a half hours to reach its destination, with only three stoppages from Howrah to NJP. The Shatabdi also runs between the two terminals.
The Vande Bharat will run six days a week except on Wednesdays. The train will depart at 5.50 am from Howrah and reach NJP at 1.25 pm. From NJP, the train will depart at 3.05 pm and reach Howrah at 10.35 pm.
The Prime Minister was also supposed to virtually lay the foundation stone of the redevelopment project of New Jalpaiguri Railway station which will be the first international train terminal of the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was scheduled to flag off the Vande Bharat Express from Kolkata on Friday, attended the programme via video conferencing, following his mother Hiraben Modi’s demise on Friday morning.
CM Banerjee, while speaking on the occasion, condoled the demise of Modi’s mother Hiraben. “Your mother is also our mother,” she said.
The CM also said work on four out of the five railway projects that Modi will launch on Friday were started during her tenure as railway minister.
