Anand Matth Blog - Nationalist Indian celebrating 75 yesrs of Indian independence

August 19, 2021

Is Indian Railway doing well under the Modi government?

I visited Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, Gujarat for the first time in 1988 as one of my relatives joined an electronics company there in 1987. Gandhinagar Electronics Zone Industries Association (GEZIA) ( website: http://www.geziaonline.org/) was established since 1987 it the capital of Gujarat zone and is the first and foremost Industrial electronics zone established and dedicated to electronic industries there as city planners wanted private sector non-polluting industry jobs in a predominantly government employee city. Gandhinagar was well planned city just like Chandigarh and its central sector was sector-21, just like Chandigarh has sector-17 but it is too small compared to Delhi. It has the state assembly and people were mostly state government employees. That changed in mid 1980s when GEZIA helped some big players like BPL electronics, Tata Telecom etc. open their shop. Most of the non-Gujarati corporate people who came there preferred to stay in big city Ahmedabad which is 30-35 km from Gandhinagar and commute daily.

I spent many months there in late 1980s and early 1990s and explored the small city on a bicycle. On one end of the city, there was small Gandhinagar railway station with a single line non-electrified broad gauge rail track and a single platform with no trains to be seen. I visited the station few times and could not see any train or people at the station! That station reminded me a rail station shown on famed Bollywood movie ‘Sholay’ where hero Jay and Veeru (Amitabh and Dharmendra) lands at an empty station and finds a lady horse cart owner Basanti (Hema Malini) outside to take them to Thakur’s (Sanjeev Kumar) house. That type of small station was Gandhinagar. Now compare that with a Mumbai suburban train platform which is always crowded with people. The Gandhinagar rail line connected to Ahmedabad Jn at one end and a thermal power plant which is prominently visible in Gandhinagar on the other. Coal transport once/twice a week for the power plant was the only utilization of that train line that time. Gandhinagar rail station appeared like a non-operational, middle of nowhere and certainly not a state capital rail station!

Gandhinagar must have changed over last 3 decades. Akshaydham temple, Gift city and even flyover came up on this city. On 16 July 2021, PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the revamped 5-star Gandhinagar ‘airport like’ rail station with a 5-star hotel with 318 rooms, corporate convention centre etc. Gandhinagar is not a national or international tourist centre. With limited corporate footfall, how the rail station and the attached hotel will be successful remains to be seen. But one thing is clear, Modi knows how to build mega infrastructure and make them successful. Another example is world’s highest Sardar Patel statue in middle of nowhere, which came up in a time bound manner and now millions are visiting it (pre pandemic data) despite strong social media venom spread by liber@ndus against the statue of Unity.

Like Gandhinagar, some of the revamped railway stations also generates Wow factor! Modi is changing India faster than one can think. This is ‘aache din’ for train commuters in India who gets world class rail stations with free wi-fi connectivity being developed by IRSDC (Indian Railways Stations Development Corporation).

In next phase railway stations like Meerut city, Moradabad, Deen Dayal Upadhaya, Gorakhpur, Aligarh, Gonda, Mathura, Agra Fort, Barelly in UP, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Gandhidham, Junagarh, Rajkot in Gujarat, Bhopal, Bina, Jhansi, Ujjain in MP, Beas, Jalandhar City, Bhatinda, Chakki Bank in Punjab, Nanded, Amravati, Akola in Maharashtra, Chappra, Sitamarhi, Barauni, Darbhanga in Bihar, Dhanbad, Tatanagar, Jasidih in Jharkhand, Tirunelvelli, Chennai Central in TN, Begumpet, Kachegoda in Telangana, Gudur, Rajamundri in AP, Bandel, New Cooch Behar in WB, Bikaner, Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Palampur in HP, Silchar in Assam, Kurukshetra in Haryana, Vasco in Goa, Mysuru in Karnataka and Haridwar in Uttrakhand.

Gandhinagar (Gujarat)