Ahmedabad: The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is going to run a Gandhi Darshan Astha Special Tourist Train on June 17 on the occasion of centenary of the establishment of historic Sabarmati Ashram here, from Sabarmati railway station in Ahmedabad for a 10 days ‘to and fro trip’ to Bihar’s Betitah and Motihari, formerly known as Champaran where Bapu had established yet another Ashram in 1917 to lead a successful Satyagrah for farmers.

Addressing a press conference here today IRCTC DGM V N Shukla said that the 15 bogey train with 13 sleeper coaches, a pantry car and two guard coaches with total passenger capacity of 840 seats would be run in collaboration with Gujarat Tourism Department.

Mr Shukla said that the train would visit important tourist attractions related to Gandhiji’s freedom movement such as “Sevagram Ashram (Wardha), Chaparan Satyagraha Monument in Bettiah and Motihari”. Those boarding the train would also get an opportunity to visit popular religious destinations like Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi and participate in famous Ganga Aarti there, Triveni Sangam (confluence of three rivers) in Allahabad and Mahabodhi temple and other religious places in Gaya. The trip would be of nine nights and ten days.

He later told UNI that the train would have stoppages at Anand, Vadodara, Bharuch and Surat stations in Gujarat as boarding points. At Wardha in Maharashtra, it would take a halt for seeing the Sevagram Ashram and other points related to Gandhiji there. It would then move to Bettiah and Motihari. It would return to Sabarmati on June 26. Like other Astha spl trains the coaches would have a public announcement system, a guide in each one it and facility of free of cost meal prepared in the pantry car.

The IRCTC DGM said that the booking for the trip would be all inclusive of train Journey, all meals, sightseeing, road journeys, security on train, tour guide, dormitory – hall accommodation for wash and change and night stay. He said that the train, which was earlier to take off on May 1, on the occasion of the foundation day of Gujarat was later postponed for a more relevant date of June 17. ‘We are getting overwhelming response for it despite no provision of AC coaches in it and the journey scheduled during summer,’ he said adding that the booking was on and there were many queries being received for the trip.

To a query he said that as a matter of policy all the coaches in the train were to be of sleeper class. Other such trains like Bharat Darshan ones and Ashtha specials too did not have any AC compartment. He said that the booking rate for per person for the trip was Rs 8720/- but special discount was being offered for the cases of group booking.

DeshGujarat