Mamata meets PM on Rail Budget
Union railway minister Mamata Banerjee called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday as part of the run-up to the Railway Budget which she will be presenting to Parliament in February.
Also present at the meeting was Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who described it as a pre-budget interaction. The approval of Mr Mukherjee’s ministry is essential for the railways to be able to announce any new projects. In fact, in 2010, Ms Banerjee had got a rap on her knuckles from Mr Mukherjee for coming up with new project proposals at the last minute for inclusion in the railway Budget. He had then told her in no uncertain terms that such proposals needed to be framed well in time for his ministry to consider funding them.
With the West Bengal Assembly polls just a few months away and Ms Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress hoping to come to dethrone the Left front government in the state, the state in all likelihood will get plenty of goodies in the rail Budget.
While the Railways faces a constant fund crunch for its projects, be it for rail coach factories, new railway lines, doubling of existing lines, etc. any hike in passenger fares is seen as being an anti-populist move. So despite a crying need for more revenue, Indian Railways have not hiked passenger fares for the last seven years.
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