While land acquisition is posing to be the biggest hurdle in all upcoming development projects in the country, work on the Rs 20 billion Rail Coach Factory in Rae Bareli kicked off on a festive note as thousands of villagers cheered UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav when they inaugurated the construction work here on Tuesday. The rail coach factory, which is expected to be completed in two years, will produce nearly 840 rail coaches annually. Terming it a historic day for the country, Lalu said that on completion, the state-of-the-art rail coach factory, the third on the country after Chennai and Kapurthala, would not only give employment to around 8000 people but would also open up multi-faceted ancillary units, which again would offer jobs for the unemployed youth of the area. Announcing the setting up of an apprentice institute in the region, Lalu exhorted the local youth to pursue education as this was the age of competition. “The biggest challenge of our times is unemployment and only infrastructure projects can act as a thrust for ushering in development that can create jobs for our youth. This project is highly needed for the development of Uttar Pradesh. The factory will ensure not only the development of this area but would change the face of the entire state. But the manner in which work on the project was stopped by the state government and the police force misused, was very unfortunate. There should be no politics in the development work,” Prasad said, while referring to Mayawati government’s move to cancel land allotment for the project last year, which had triggered a political storm. However, the state government later restored the land. Asking Mayawati which way she was taking the state, Lalu said “Neither my children nor Congress workers would come here to work in the coach factory. This factory would provide employment to the people of the state. What Mayawati did was not the right thing and she will get a befitting reply from the people,” Lalu said. AICC general secretary and MP from Amethi, Rahul Gandhi said the setting up of the rail coach factory in the district would act as a catalyst and trigger rapid industrialisation in the Rae Bareli and Amethi, just the way it did in Kapurthala, in Punjab. “The coach factory will change the face and fate of the two constituencies in the years…