SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Dec 17: The Jyotirlinga Darshan special train of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) headed out from Dhanbad, carrying around 650 pilgrims on Friday morning.
Dhanbad Sadar MLA Raj Sinha flagged off the train from platform 4 no. of Dhanbad railway station at 8 am. Dhanbad Rail Division officials said that among 650 devotee passengers,150 of them are from Dhanbad. The special train will also stop at Gomoh and Koderma stations in Jharkhand.
According to railway officials, the special train will carry the devotees to seven Jyotirlinga temples of lord Shiva including Mahakaleshwar temple (Ujjayini Madhya Pradesh), Omkaleshwar Jyotirlinga ( Khandwa MP), Somnath (Patan Gujarat), Dwarikadhish Temple ( Dwarika Gujarat), Nageshwar ( Gujarat), Shirdi Saibaba ( Maharashtra) Triyanbakam ( Maharashtra), Bhimashankar ( Rajgurnagar Maharashtra) in a 13-day (December 17 to 29) tour. The train will also get the devotee passengers to visit at Statue of Unity at Patan of Gujarat.
The passengers will be provided vegetarian food and a bus facility to visit the scenic spots during this tour.
While flagging off the special train, Dhanbad Sadar MLA Raj Sinha highly appreciated the programme of IRCTC and congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for providing the opportunity of Jyotirlinga Darshan to people on subsidy.
On the occasion, the MLA also requested the IRCTC to run a special train for Kashi Vishwanath on the same pattern as Jyotirlinga Darshan.
“Kashidham has become the country’s spiritual, religious, and economic centre. So a special train should also run for people to visit there,” said MLA Raj Sinha.
