Eastern Railway organised 128th. ZRUCC Meeting.

Sept 2025 : The 128^th. Zonal Railway Users Consultative Committee (ZRUCC) meeting of the Eastern Railway was held under the chairmanship of Mr. Milind Deouskar, General Manager, Eastern Railway today (16.9.2025) at Kolkata. About 21 members of ZRUCC were present in the meeting including Mr. Khalilur Rahaman, Honourable MP and Mr. Lalan Kumar, Honourable MLA, Bihar Legislative Assembly, Nominees & Representatives of various dignitaries like Mr. Shantanu Thakur, Honourable MP & Union Minister of State, Mr. Giridhari Yadav, Honourable MP, Mrs. Annapurna Devi, Honourable MP & Union Minister, Mr. Kamlesh Paswan, Honourable Union Minister of State and ZRUCC members from various Chambers of Commerce of different locations including West Bengal, Bihar & Jharkhand were also present in the meeting.

Mr. Milind Deouskar, General Manager, Eastern Railway welcomed all the Members of ZRUCC. In the meeting, General Manager upholds various achievements of Eastern Railway during 2025-26 like Zero consequential accidents with augmented safety, loading of record amount of freight over 40 million tons till August 2025, significant punctuality of train services with 83% in respect of Mail/Express trains and 89% in case of suburban train services.

General Manager also mentioned that 52 coaches were permanently augmented in different long distance trains and 904 coaches were augmented temporarily. The rakes of 06 long distance trains converted into LHB coaches, 5 pairs of new mail/express and 3 pairs of new passenger trains were introduced. In respect of EMU services, 24 new services including 06 AC EMU services introduced in Sealdah division and 06 EMU services introduced in Howrah division. He also mentioned that Eastern Railway facilitating passenger movement during different festivals this year. 1570 Shravani Mela special trains has been run over Eastern Railway and for the ensuing Puja period, 1120 trips of long distance trains have been scheduled so far.

Moreover, Mr. Milind Deouskar, General Manager also mentioned that during 2025-26 Eastern Railway has provided Train Indication Boards at 09 stations and Coach Indication Boards at 02 stations where Mail/Express trains have stoppages. Besides, new platform sheds, foot over bridges, steel benches & chairs, water coolers have been provided at different stations.

During the meeting, Honourable MPs & Honourable MLAs and other members of ZRUCC placed their demands & suggestions vividly to Eastern Railway officials. Mr. Khalilur Rahaman, Honourable MP suggested for introduction of MEMU local in Sealdah – Lalgola section for the comfort of the passengers. He also demanded for new Road Over Bridge at Dhulia Ganga and Sujnipara stations and also demanded a Delhi bound trains from Sealdah through Nasipur bridge.

Mr. Lallan Singh, Honourable MLA praised Eastern Railway’s various projects, friendly initiatives like redevelopment of stations under Amrit Station Scheme like Pirpainti, Shivnarayanpur etc.

Various members also pledged their requests/suggestions for various initiatives and projects like AC local train services in Howrah – Barddhaman route, augmentation of Pantry Car in long distance trains having journey time over 24 hours, stoppage of Vande Bharat & Rajdhani Express trains in different stations like Barddhaman, Durgapur, Sultanganj etc., along with installation of lifts & escalators at different important stations, increase in frequency of different mail/express trains, construction of Washing Pit at Sahebganj etc. One of the ZRUCC members expressed his gratitude for redeveloping the Bolpur Shantiniketan station with the theme of cultural tradition of Shantiniketan.

In today’s ZRUCC meeting, ZRUCC members elected Mr. Sashanka Sekhar Guha and elevated for the next higher level i.e., NRUCC (National Rail User Consultative Committee) Member.

General Manager/Eastern Railway gave a patient hearing to all the demands and suggestions. The General Manager assured the Members that Eastern Railway is always keen in authenticating the suggestions of the Members and to implement the various suggestions offered after detailed deliberation of the same.

Principal Heads of Departments like Dr. Uday Shankar Jha, Principal Chief Commercial Manager, Mr. Saumitra Biswas, Principal Chief Operations Manager, Mr. Vikram Gupta, Principal Chief Engineer, Mr. Devender Kumar, Principal Chief Electrical Engineer, Sri P. K. Sharma, Chief Administrative Officer/Construction, Mr. Bhuvnesh Kumar Agrawal, Principal Chief Signal & Telecommunication Engineer, Mr. Amiya Nandan Sinha, Principal Chief Security Commissioner, Mr. Manoj Khan, CAO/CON/RSP, Mr. B. Paswan, CE/RSP and other senior officers were also present in the meeting.

The meeting was concluded with vote of thanks by Mr. Ved Prakash, Deputy General Manager (G), Eastern Railway.

Team Maverick