Dahod, May 26 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to his home state of Gujarat, inaugurated an electric locomotive manufacturing facility of the Indian Railways on Monday and also laid the foundation and launched several development projects in Dahod worth over Rs 24,000 crore.

PM Modi also flagged off two major train services — Vande Bharat Express train between Veraval and Ahmedabad, and a new express train connecting Valsad and Dahod.

The opening of new train lines has left the local population delighted and overjoyed. Valsad locals expressed their gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that the new trains will save both time and money.

Local resident Vipul Kumar was ecstatic over the reopening of the train line between Valsad and Dahod. He said it was started earlier, but the operation was stopped midway.

“Earlier, people had to travel by bus from Valsad to Dahod. This took a lot of time,” he said.

Ambubhai Patel, another local resident, said that the entire tribal community will benefit from this.

“Earlier, people had to travel by bus, which was very troublesome. Traveling by bus takes more time and costs more money than travelling by train. To travel by bus, first you have to go from Valsad to Surat and then change bus to go to Dahod and Baroda. PM Modi has done good work for the tribals,” he said.

Another person named Hitesh said that the Valsad-Dahod train will benefit a lot of people and will be a big gift for passengers.

The Valsad-Dahod Express train will ply daily between Valsad and Dahod. It has 17 coaches and will cover a distance of 346 km. It will depart from Valsad at 5.50 a.m.

Passengers of Vande Bharat Express, another train connecting Veraval Somnath with Ahmedabad, also expressed happiness while talking to IANS.

A woman from Junagadh said that she came to visit Somnath temple.

“I am sitting on Vande Bharat Express for the first time. This train will go from Somnath to Sabarmati,” she said, sharing her experience on the new service.

–IANS

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