Lifelines of National Economy Test - 19

Kolkata port is located on the banks of the river Hooghly. It handles diversified commodities, coming from south-east Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand. Kolkata port was established by the British East India Company after the company received trading rights from the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

• Frist underground metro rail was started in the year 1984 in Kolkata.  The rail served on a single line only, between Esplanade and Netaji Bhawan.
  
• In 2010 Kolkata underground metro railway was added to the present 16 railway zones and hence making Indian railway zones into 17.
  

Sher Shah Suri built the Shahi (Royal) road to strengthen and consolidate his empire from the Indus Valley to the Sonar Valley in Bengal. This road was renamed the Grand Trunk (GT) road during the British period, connecting Calcutta and Peshawar. At present, it extends from Amritsar to Kolkata. It is bifurcated into 2 segments : (a) National Highway(NH)-1 from Delhi to Amritsar, and (b) NH- 2 from Delhi to Kolkata.

Kandla in Kuchchh was the first port developed soon after Independence to ease the volume of trade on the Mumbai port, in the wake of loss of Karachi port to Pakistan after the Partition. 

It is the largest port in terms of Cargo it handles. Major imports entering the Port of Kandla are petroleum, chemicals, and iron and steel and iron machinery, but it also handles salt, textiles, and grain.

Suburban rail is defined as a rail service between a central business district and suburbs that carry a large number of people on a daily basis. They usually have nine coaches or sometimes twelve to handle rush hour traffic.

Mumbai suburban rail is very developed. It is spread over 465 kilometres with 2342 trains carrying about 7 million people daily.

Paradip Port is a natural, deep-water port on the East coast of India in the Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha. It is situated at the confluence of the Mahanadi river and the Bay of Bengal.

It is the second largest port in terms of volume of traffic handled and is the oldest artificial harbour on the east coast of India. It handles petroleum products, crude oil, fertilisers, iron ore and dry cargo.

Pipeline transport network is a new arrival on the transportation map of India.  In the past, these were used to transport water to cities and industries. Now, these are used for transporting crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas from oil and natural gas fields to refineries, fertilizer factories and big thermal power plants. 

Trans-shipment is nothing but changing of modes of transport. For example road ways to water ways. During this there may be leakage especially in case of liquids and harmful chemicals. This is the reason why they are transported through pipelines to avoid losses due to trans-shipment.

Rajdhani Express and Shatabdi Express are express train services in India.

• Rajdhani and Shatabdi express trains are passenger trains and the fastest trains.
  
• Shatabdi express trains run short to medium distances while Rajdhani express covers long distances connecting metropolitans of the country.