Rly-pvt partnership

IN PARLIAMENT TODAY

The railways is planning to outsource service provisions as part of its public-private partnership endeavour. Railway Board Chairman J P Batra said management of waiting halls would be one of the significant services to be off-shored.

The Railways has already started a pilot project at the New Delhi Railway Station for which it is in talks with private parties. He hinted at a cleanliness drive aimed at reinstating the image of the Railways.

According to Batra, an investment of about Rs 50,000 crore is needed to fund various rail projects every year while the annual budgetary support is only to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore.

No land scam

In the face of sharp attack and charges of scam by the Left in awarding contracts for the modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports to a joint venture, the government has asserted that no land will be allowed to be sold and interests of workers of airport authority of india will be fully protected in the process.

Expressing dissatisfaction with Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel's reply in the Rajya Sabha, the Left parties staged a walk out alleging that efforts were on to privatise the Airport Authority of India. The members said bulk of the revenue of the AAI came from the two airports.

IPO Scam penalty

The Reserve Bank of India has imposed a penalty of Rs 1.05 crore on 9 commercial banks for their role in the recent IPO scam. On Feb 24, the RBI fined HDFC bank Rs 25 lakh, ING Vysya Bank Rs 10 lakh and IDBI Rs 5 lakh, Minister of State for Finance PK Bansal said on Friday.

Earlier in January, the market regulator had fined Bharat Overseas Bank (Rs 20 lakh), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 15 lakh), Vijaya Bank (Rs 10 lakh), HDFC Bank (Rs 5 lakh), ICICI bank (Rs 5 lakh), Citibank (Rs 5 lakh) and Standard Chartered Bank (Rs 5 lakh).

Rs 3,022 cr WB aid

The government has approached the World Bank for four projects estimated to cost Rs 3,022 crore for developing hilly states. The projects are being evaluated by the WB.

"The Himachal Pradesh State Roads Project is estimated to cost Rs 1,150 crore and the participatory watershed management project in Jammu & Kashmir Rs 969 crore," Minister of Finance Pawan Kumar Bansal said on Friday. The other two projects are - Uttranchal Rural Water Supply & Sanitation Project II (Rs 500 crore) and the Tripura Agricultural Development project (Rs 403 crore).

Rural Area Fund

Lok Sabha members today made a strong plea for greater allocation of resources for rural development, expansion of the employment guarantee scheme and dole to unemployed youth for transforming the dismal picture in the countryside.

They also wanted the government to ensure a strict monitoring mechanism for the programmes so as to avoid leakages of the huge outlays.