Union Minister for Railways Pawan Kumar Bansal on Friday inaugurated the Chandigarh-Amritsar track by flagging off the first superfast express train on it.

Mr. Bansal and some other Congress leaders boarded the Chandigarh-Ludhiana Superfast Express train from the Chandigarh railway station and traveled to Mohali, and participated in an inauguration function.

The Chandigarh-Ludhiana Superfast Express cuts the travel time between the two cities by 40 minutes.

The new line is 112 kilometers in length and its construction took nearly 15 years to complete. The project was completed in three phases. The first phase (Chandigarh-New Morinda) was opened in September 2006, which the second phase (Sanehwal-Ludhiana) and third phase (New Morinda-Sanehwal) was opened in November 2012 and on Friday, respectively.

The project was started in 1997-98, but it suffered long delays. It is after Mr. Bansal took over as the Union Railway Minister that the project was accelerated.

Apart from Chandigarh and Ludhiana, the new train will benefit residents of several other major cities, including Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ferozepur, Beas, Pathankot, Tarn Taran, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Batala.