The glossy magazine will have sections on entertainment, general knowledge, movie reviews, sports, jokes, railway information and a host of other features. In another fortnight, Eastern Railway will begin offering it to passengers on the Shatabdi Express. The contract for publishing the monthly magazine, which promises to be as good as Indian Airlines' Swagat, has been awarded to Deep Prakashan, a Kolkata-based house.

"We got the green signal from the railway authorities in end-December. You can understand what we went through in the last couple of days," said Mr Shankar Mondal, the editor of Deep Prakashan. The railway will not have any financial commitment - it will neither have to pay the publishers anything nor will it get any money from them. But the market will be huge. Every week, a total of 11 Rajdhanis each carrying 800 passengers depart from the two stations in Kolkata alone. A senior official of Eastern Railway said the circulation will be extended to the other Rajdhanis if the trial runs is successful. "We will then offer it on the Shatabdis and the airconditioned compartments of trains like the Kalka Mail. The target is the premium segment," he said. The monthly magazine will be distributed free and will come in three languages - Bengali, English and Hindi. "The magazine will be like Swagat, the magazine that is provided by Indian Airlines for its passengers," said Mr Mondal. The railway official said thepublishers will be responsible for marketing the magazine and generating advertising revenues. The publishers are upbeat about their new venture, but declined to specify the revenue goal.