Mamata in tears after Pranab ‘no’ to her plea
New Delhi, Feb. 18: A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure on Thursday saw railway minister Mamata Banerjee breaking down after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee reportedly pulled her up for coming with her proposals for projects to be unveiled in the forthcoming Railway Budget (due on February 24) so late in the day.
The Trinamul Congress chief had gone to the CCI armed with at least two dozen new project proposals that she plans to announce in the Railway Budget, sources said. Ms Banerjee made a strong appeal before Mr Mukherjee for budgetary support for these projects at the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the sources added.
At this, Mr Mukherjee lost his cool and upbraided Ms Banerjee, asking her from where all the money required for the proposed projects would come. With the government struggling to rein in a high fiscal deficit, Mr Mukherjee made it clear to her that the amount being sought for these projects could not be made available.
With Ms Banerjee in tears, minister for housing and poverty alleviation Kumari Selja, who is also a CCI member and was sitting on the other side of the table, reportedly walked up to her and was seen consoling her and trying to calm her down.
At Thursday’s meeting, Ms Banerjee’s proposal for enhancing allocations to the Railway Safety Fund was rejected by the CCI. The committee did, however, approve funds for the Kanchrapara-Halisahar railway complex which is to come up near Kolkata, which had been announced in the July 2009 Railway Budget. Ms Banerjee was able to bring it before the CCI only after seven months.
Budgetary allocations for two other rail projects — an electric locomotives factory at Madhepura and a diesel loco manufacturing unit at Marora, both in Bihar, which had been announced by Ms Banerjee’s predecessor Lalu Prasad Yadav — were also approved by the CCI on Thursday.
It is noteworthy that most railway projects, while economically unviable, do fulfil the social viability criteria. It should also be noted that Ms Banerjee, in keeping with her pro-aam aadmi image, had emphasised that "the old mindset of economic viability should be substituted by social viability". She had even set up an expert committee to advise her on innovative financing for "economically unviable" projects which were "socially desirable".
Sources close to Ms Banerjee had said to this newspaper: "Money is required for new trains and railway lines, new stations, etc. But from where will this money come?"
Mukesh Ranjan and Parul Chandra
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