‘West Asia conflict has affected world’s energy supply chain, we believe in India First ideology’: PM Modi

TURUCHIRAPALLI (Tamil Nadu):  Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that the conflict in West Asia has affected the energy supply chain in the world, and his government believes in the ideology of India First.

Addressing a public meeting in Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, PM Modi said his government will follow the same approach of putting the interests of Indians above everything else and there is no need to panic or pay attention to rumours.

He urged people to spread only correct and verified information and expressed confidence that the country will navigate every situation successfully. “Today, I’d like to speak to the people of Tamil Nadu about the conflict in West Asia. It has affected the whole world’s energy supply chain. We believe in the ideology of India First,” he said.

“In any situation, we have seen how our government always puts the interests of Indians above everything. Even in these times, our approach will be the same. There is no need to panic or pay attention to rumours. I’d like to appeal to the people, let’s only spread only correct and verified information,” he added.

#WATCH | Tamil Nadu: At public meeting in Tiruchirappalli, PM Modi says, “Last time, I came here to Trichy. It was for a program related to projects worth nearly Rs 20,000 Crores. A few days ago, I had visited Madurai. We held a program that had projects worth over Rs 4400… pic.twitter.com/Cc3Dumo0dq

— ANI (@ANI) March 11, 2026

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The Prime Minister also referred to the government’s handling of Covid-19 pandemic and said 100 crore Indians “showed the world how mature our nation is”. “I am confident that as a nation, we will navigate every situation successfully,” he said.

PM Modi on Wednesday flagged off two Amrit Bharat Express trains, two Express trains and a passenger train from Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu and another passenger train from Ernakulum in Kerala.

The new train services will collectively benefit millions of passengers across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, and Jharkhand. The occasion will also see the inauguration of three redeveloped Amrit Stations in Kerala and the dedication of the Shoranur-Nilambur Railway Line electrification project to the nation.

There is a city in Tamil Nadu where two railway stations stand barely six kilometres apart, yet until now, neither could offer its people a direct train to the mineral heartland of Jharkhand. That city is Coimbatore. But that is about to change after Prime Minister Modi flagged off the Podanur-Dhanbad Amrit Bharat Express from Tiruchirappalli. From the loom-towns of the south to the coal-ringed plateaus of the east, Indian Railways has answered a demand that this region had carried for decades.

Podanur Junction, Coimbatore’s secondary railway node, tucked into the city’s southern edge, is the originating terminal of this new Amrit Bharat Express. Coimbatore Junction follows within minutes as the first commercial halt. Together, they give Coimbatore’s millions a double gateway to a train that runs all the way to Dhanbad directly. A single train from where you live to where you need to be.

Earlier, this journey meant boarding one train to Chennai or Vijayawada, waiting for hours, and boarding another, adding the better part of a day to what is already a long-distance route. The new Amrit Bharat Express changes the arithmetic entirely. A weekly service, it departs Podanur every Saturday morning and arrives at Dhanbad by Monday early morning, with the return service running every Monday from Dhanbad. Threading through Salem, Renigunta, Vijayawada, Jharsuguda, and Ranchi along the way, the new weekly train will touch every major node of the corridor that connects South India’s industrial spine to the east’s energy belt.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion known only to those who must travel 2,000 kilometres to go home. The textile worker in Tiruppur whose family lives in a village outside Dhanbad. The machinist in Coimbatore, whose children grew up in Jharkhand without him nearby. The young woman who left Bokaro to stitch garments in the shadow of Coimbatore’s spinning mills. For them, the journey home was not an inconvenience; it was a calculation. Can I afford the time? Can I bear the connections, the crowded platforms, the uncertainty?

The Amrit Bharat Express was designed with these travellers in mind. Non-air-conditioned, affordably priced, with no dynamic fare surging that prices out the monthly-wage earner at peak season, it is a train that does not distinguish between those who can afford comfort and those who simply need to move. Its sleeper and general-class coaches are the workhorses of Indian Railways, and the Amrit Bharat brings to them the upgraded ride quality, modern interiors, and higher speeds that were once the preserve of premium services. Two Divyangjan-accessible coaches ensure that persons with disabilities are not left behind.

Coimbatore and Tiruppur together form Tamil Nadu’s single largest concentration of inter-state migrant labour. These are the workers who power the looms, the lathes, and the construction cranes that have made this region the manufacturing backbone of the South. Most of them come from precisely the states this train passes through. For them, the Podanur-Dhanbad Amrit Bharat Express is not a government announcement. It is a door that finally opens.

India’s economy runs, in no small part, on the conversation between two kinds of cities, those that make things, and those that fuel the making. Coimbatore and Dhanbad have long been in that conversation, even if the railway had not yet formally introduced them. The Salem Steel Plant, which produces the special alloy steels used in railway tracks, defence applications, and infrastructure, draws its coking coal from the mines around Dhanbad. The raw material travels south in freight rakes; now, the human capital that moves between these two worlds will travel in an Amrit Bharat Express.

The route reads like a map of India’s economic geography. From Coimbatore’s textile mills through Erode and Salem, across the Deccan to Vijayawada, then north through Odisha’s steel corridor in Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, and Rourkela, before climbing into Jharkhand through Ranchi and Bokaro Steel City to arrive at Dhanbad. Every stop is a chapter in the story of how India makes things.

Indian Railways’ vision is in line with the Viksit Bharat dream, which rests on exactly this kind of integration. Real development is not the connectivity of metros alone, but the stitching together of India’s secondary and tertiary cities into a single, functioning national economy.

There is another city at the very edge of India where the land runs out, and three seas meet. Kanyakumari, and the coastal belt that stretches northward through Nagercoil, has long been a region of pilgrims, fishermen, and quietly industrious people who have built their lives at the southernmost tip of the subcontinent. Yet for all its significance, this belt has remained stubbornly distant from the economic opportunities of the Deccan. A journey from Nagercoil to Hyderabad meant changes, waits, and the better part of two days spent in transit. That distance will shrink with the introduction of this new service.

The Nagercoil-Charlapalli Amrit Bharat Express is this region’s first direct Amrit Bharat link to Telangana, threading through over twenty districts across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. It is a train that will carry students from Kanyakumari to colleges in Hyderabad, workers from the Kerala-Tamil Nadu coast to the job markets of the Deccan, and families separated by the geography of opportunity back to each other more easily than before.

The districts it serves, stretching from Kanniyakumari in the deep south to Medchal-Malkajgiri on Hyderabad’s outskirts, form a corridor that has never before been served by a single, continuous, affordable train. For a region that has long felt peripheral to railway expansion, this is not merely a new service. It is an acknowledgement.

The Rameswaram-Mangaluru Express and the Tirunelveli-Mangaluru Express both chart a course through the Coimbatore corridor en route to the Karnataka coast. Residents of Coimbatore district now have new, direct options westward to Mangaluru without the need to change at intermediate stations. For pilgrims travelling to Rameswaram, one of the most sacred destinations in the Hindu calendar, the new express brings the Ramanathaswamy Temple a journey closer, with the route covering Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka and serving students, traders, and working professionals across the coastal belt.

For the Cauvery Delta, the Mayiladuthurai-Thiruvarur-Karaikkudi passenger train service brings relief to an agriculturally vital and culturally rich belt, benefiting the districts of Mayiladuthurai, Tiruvarur, Thanjavur, Pudukkottai, and Sivaganga, each of which has waited long for its connectivity to match its importance.

And, the Palakkad-Pollachi train service may be the smallest train announced, but it carries an outsized significance for daily life. Pollachi, Coimbatore district’s agrarian heart, known for its banana and coconut trade and flourishing small industry, now has a direct electric rail connection to Palakkad across the Kerala border. For students seeking colleges in Palakkad, for patients who must reach hospitals in either city, for daily commuters and traders who have long navigated this corridor by road alone, the new service offers faster, affordable, and cleaner connectivity.

In Kerala, three stations are being inaugurated as Amrit Bharat Stations, Shoranur, Kuttippuram, and Changanassery, rebuilt with modern passenger amenities, upgraded platforms, lifts and escalators, free Wi-Fi, and station facades inspired by local art and culture. The three stations have been redeveloped at a combined cost of approximately ₹52 crore under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme. These are not merely renovated buildings. They are a statement that every Indian, regardless of which city they call home, deserves a station that reflects the country’s ambitions.

Alongside these inaugurations, the electrification of the Shoranur-Nilambur Railway Line, spanning 65 kilometres through Malappuram district at a project cost of Rs. 90 crore, is being dedicated to the nation. The electrified corridor eliminates diesel traction, cuts travel time, reduces emissions, and enables the seamless introduction of more passenger and freight services across one of Kerala’s most densely populated districts.

The Amrit Bharat Express is one of the defining rail projects of the Amrit Kaal. Built at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai under the Make in India initiative, each rake brings together modern design and sturdy construction. It does not just bring the luxury of a premium service, but the dignity of a well-made train for the working majority. With a push-pull locomotive configuration enabling speeds of up to 130 km/h, and a coach composition of sleeper, general, and Divyangjan-accessible classes plus a pantry car, it carries the spirit of Antyodaya, that is, last-mile inclusion in every journey it makes.

Currently, 54 Amrit Bharat Express trains are in service across India. Since the first rake rolled out in January 2024, the network has grown steadily, reaching the sub-Himalayan north, the North-East, the Deccan, and now, emphatically, the deep south. With two new trains, operating four train services, the total count will rise to 58, continuing its steady expansion across the length and breadth of the country.

Tracks do not merely carry trains. They carry aspirations, the labourer’s hope of reaching home, the industrialist’s confidence that supply chains will hold, the student’s faith that distance is not destiny. (ANI)