The Indian Railways has announced the launch of Aastha Circuit Tourist Train which will ply from Guwahati in Assam. The all-inclusive service train will start from 17th February, 2017 and would take travellers to famous pilgrimage destinations in the eastern part of country.
What’s more
The idea behind launching Aastha is to connect northeast region to other parts of India. The train is in line with the Prime Minister’s focus on removing Northeast isolation through pro-active act east policy, a statement from the Indian Railways said here on Monday.
Services
The tourist train will be covering some of the famous destinations including Gangasagar, Kolkata – Sri Swamy Narayan Temple, Kalighat, Birla Temple, Puri Sri Jagannath Temple, Konark Temple, and Bhubaneswar Lingaraj Temple. The train will have boarding stations at various places like Kamakhya, Alipurduar, New Cooch Behar, New Jalpaiguri, Malda, New Farakka, Pakur, Rampurhat and Bolpur. The services will be all inclusive- including train travel in sleeper class, meals throughout the tour (veg meals), non-AC tourist buses for covering the famous tourist attractions across cities, accommodations in Dharamshalas/dormitories, security guards in every coach and IRCTC officers as train superintendents as well.
USP
The USP of this train will be its affordable ticket prices for different tours. For a 6 nights, 7 days tour from Guwahati to Guwahati, the charges would be INR 850 per person per day with applicable taxes. The per person cost for the complete trip will be around INR 6,161.
