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    The Railways have introduced 107 new trains, increased the frequencies of 12 trains and extended the run of 68 trains during the first nine months of the current financial year ending December,1997. The new services include five Swarnajayanti Express trains to mark the 50 years of India's Independence besides New Delhi-Ahmedabad Rajdhani Express(Weekly).

    The train services to be introduced in keeping with the Railway Minister's budget announcement during the remaining period of the current financial year 1997-98 are : Hazrat Nizamuddin (New Delhi)- Secunderabad Rajdhani Express(Weekly), AmritsarJaipur Express(bi-weekly), Koraput-Rayagada- Bhubaneswar Link Express, extension of New DelhiGuwahati Rajdhani Express upto Dibrugarh on a weekly basis and extension of Mumbai-Ahmedabad Janata Express upto Jaipur.

    Meanwhile, the punctuality of Mail and Express trains has improved to 92.2 per cent during April-December,1997 as against 91.9 per cent during the corresponding period of 1996-97.
 
 

    About 42 lakh rural youths have been trained under TRYSEM so far. TRYSEM stands for Training of Rural Youth for Self-employment. As a support component of the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), it was started in August 1979 with a view to facilitating development of IRDP activities, away from the primary sector to the secondary and tertiary sectors through acquisition or upgradation of skills.

    The programme aims at providing basic technical and managerial skills to the rural youth from families below the poverty line to enable them to take up self-employment and wage employment in agricultural and allied sectors, industries, services and business activities.

    Technical skills are imparted to the rural youth in the age group of 18-35 from families below the poverty line. The minimum age is relaxable to 16 years for inmates of orphanages. In the case of women and bonded labourers and convicts, cured leprosy patients and persons displaced by large development programmes, the age relaxation is upto 45 years. TRYSEM is a need-based programme. Nearly Rs.14 crore on infrastructure and Rs.36.44 crore on recurring expenditure was utilised on TRYSEM in the last financial year.