In a marked departure from Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s Mukul Roy, who resigned on Friday along with five other TMC ministers, new railway minister C P Joshi visited Rail Bhavan soon after taking charge of the ministry. Roy was known more as a ‘minister in absentia’, as he rarely went to the Rail Bhavan, preferring instead to operate from Kolkata.
Joshi, who is holding the portfolio in addition to his charge as road transport and highways minister, said: “Safety will be my top priority, along with passenger amenities and modernisation of rail infrastructure.”
With Joshi’s arrival at the rail ministry, this crucial ministry has returned to Congress control after 17 years. The last Congress minister in charge of railways was Suresh Kalmadi (1995-96).
According to Congress sources, the prime minister wants the long-pending decisions in the railways be implemented without further delay.
The railway portfolio became controversial after TMC’s own former minister, Dinesh Trivedi, raised passenger fares. This move brought him in direct conflict with his party and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, who got Roy to replace him in the midst of the passing of the rail budget in Parliament. Roy rolled back most of the decisions by his predecessor.
Trivedi had attempted to implement the Sam Pitroda committee report on railway modernisation and tried to generate additional resources for it through freight rate hike and the passenger fare hike. The latter move generated a lot of controversy with TMC objecting to as it was against any sort of fare hike.