Rail Budget 2013: Budget disappoints UPA opponents, allies

NEW DELHI: Non-Congress parties had no kind word to spare for the railway budget presented in Parliament on Tuesday.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar called the budget “disappointing” and said while Congress-ruled states were given sops, states such as Bihar were ignored. The JD(U) leader, who was railway minister in the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, accused the UPA government of “lacking courage” and resorting to “cleverness” by increasing fares in January itself and not announcing any fare hike in the budget.
“While the government claims it hasn’t increased fares, the charges of tatkal and cancellation have been hiked, which will adversely hit passengers,” he said. “No new train has been given to Bihar despite the fact that it has the maximum number of train travellers in the country.”
Kumar criticised the announcement of new projects without making arrangements for funds and other necessary clearances. “The NDA government had stopped this practice (announcing projects without required clearances) but it has been started again now. This is unfortunate,” he said.
Trinamool Congress MP Sougata Roy said: “The railway budget is direction-less. It’s an anti-aam admi budget and there have been attempts to undermine Mamata Banerjee’s role as a former railway minister. A meagre amount has been allocated for all the railway projects in West Bengal and the budget has been made with vengeance against West Bengal. For example, around Rs 700 crore was needed for the Kanchrapara coach factory, but only Rs 2 crore has been allocated in the budget.”
Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa found the budget to be a “major disappointment”, saying that the hike in supplementary and freight charges would cause an increase in the prices of essential commodities. The AIADMK chief said no measures or significant increases in investment were proposed. No high-speed freight corridor had been proposed in peninsular India, including Tamil Nadu, she said.
Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal described the budget as a “letdown and a huge disappointment” for the poor and middle classes in general and for the people of Punjab in particular. “The central government has burdened the common man with additional fare hikes through the back door and announced no new facilities for the poor and middle-class passengers,” he said. Alleging the budget was discriminatory towards Punjab, Badal said the government had gone back on its commitment to set up an additional integral coach factory in the state.
Even UPA allies Samajwadi Party and BSP were unhappy, saying the rail budget was anti-poor and ignored the interests of Uttar Pradesh, which needed rail infrastructure for economic development.
BSP chief Mayawati said the rail budget was a “disappointment”. “The poor and middle class people will not benefit much from it,” she said. “The fare has been hiked through the back door.”
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said: “I have never seen such an anti-people budget in my political life.... This is a budget for the Congress ... you can give new trains for Rae Bareli (the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi), but don’t ignore Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal.”
Budget 2013 > Rail Budget 2013 > Economic Survey 2013