Manpreet Badal says rail budget discriminatory Modi govt’s railway budget lacks new vision, discriminatory: Manpreet Badal Chandigarh, July 7: Peoples’ Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal slammed the first railway budget of the Narendra Modi government presented in the Lok Sabha today as not only lacking in imagination but also discriminatory so far as the interests of this state were concerned. Alleging step-motherly treatment to Punjab, he pointed out no new railway line had been proposed in the budget despite demand from the people. In this regard, he referred to the Chandigarh-Rajpura link of about 35 km which could directly connect the entire Malwa region to Chandigarh. There also had been demands for several other links, including Amrisar-Ferozepur. He said of course, three new trains had been announced but Punjab had not been given any new high speed train. The only new railway line that had been added in the rail map of Punjab over the years was Chandigarh-Ludhiana. Punjab needed more rail links and more trains. He lambasted the Akali Dal-BJP government in the state for having failedto get the demand for linking freight corridor from Ludhiana and Amritsar announced in the new budget. He observed with both India and Pakistan heading towards free trade via Attari-Wagha border, this vital link would provide access to the central Asian markets to Punjab. He observed that in general, the railway minister did not come out with any new ideas and what he put up as new ideas were mainly the old wine in new bottle. He said the proposal for FDI had been made by the UPA government in last year’s rail budget. Modernisation of railway stations and speeding up the trains had been an on-going process. He commented the railways have been described as the engine of growth but this government had failed to come up with an alternative model of growth. The similarities with the last year’s budget speech were too obvious, he added saying most of the projects and the ideas seemed to have been borrowed from the earlier budget.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 05:28:08 +0000
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