Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)    
With inputs from PTI

Mangalore, Feb 4: A Congress party delegation on Sunday February 3 met Puducherry chief minister N Rangasamy at his party office and demanded measures for all-round development of the union territory. 

Up-grade rail connectivity and ensure a constructive environment to attract IT and industrial investments, urged the Puducherry Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary V P Abdul Rahman. 

Specifically the demands included running a ‘Shatabdi Express’ linking a tri-weekly train service between Puducherry and Mangalore city and vice versa, a tri weekly service between Puducherry and Bangalore and vice versa and another train service linking Puducherry to Chennai and vice versa and another demand for generous tax cuts to attract investors.  

Heading a party delegation, Rahman handed over a memorandum to Rangasamy at the party office here and urged him to convene an all-party meeting at the earliest to finalize the report to enhance train services. 

Also a request was made to the latter to forward the final report to the central government before the tabling of the railway budget in parliament, so that provisions could be made to augment train services in the railway budget (2008-09). 

Later Rahman distributed copies of the memorandum to reporters and also among party workers stating that this was to “underline the need for our workers to press for these demands.” Moreover, according to him trade and industry and also tourism would boom if these projects were introduced and job opportunities could also be generated if they went on stream, he added. 

The chief minister on his part promised to look into the matter.