- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE ongoing protest against the Narendra Modi government’s ‘Agnipath’ recruitment scheme for the armed forces has caused a massive loss to the Indian Railways and especially to the Danapur division of the state.
The Danapur division has reportedly faced a whopping loss of Rs 226 crore (£24 million) so far, its divisional railway manager Prabhat Kumar has said. As many as 50 coaches and seven engines in 14 trains were gutted by the protesters who are not happy with the ‘Agnipath’ scheme and want the government to roll it back immediately. One entire train comprising 23 coaches was torched in Lakhisarai.
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More than 50 passenger trains and 40 express trains were cancelled because of the protests while the travel distance of three trains was curtailed. Many stations and signalling systems were heavily damaged and the railways had to refund tickets worth Rs 70 crore (£7.3 million) because of cancellation of trains due to the violent protests.
Kumar told Hindi newspaper Hindustan that the railways had not seen such damage even during the ‘Total Revolution’ that Jayprakash Narayan had given call for against the Indira Gandhi government in the early 1970s.
