Gone are the days of “didi raj” in the Railways’ ministry, it is time for a “dada era”.
The minister of state from West Bengal Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is batting for rollback of Mamata Banerjee’s initiatives at the ministry, including job for land losers, coach factory at Tata Motors’ land in Singur and also hinting at a fare hike. However, the Congress stalwart from Bengal has assured that other projects from the state will not be allowed to suffer because of politics.
Talking about the Trinamool Congress supremo’s idea to offer job for one member of a each family whose land has to be acquired, Chowdhury said, “Her plan to offer job for land was not a pragmatic idea. We want it to be removed. For example, for a small stretch of land of about 15 kilo metres in Bengal, Railways had to consider more than 2,000 people. For an organisation like Railways, it is not feasible.”
The change of guard at the ministry happened with the Trinamool Congress pull out, which led to a Cabinet reshuffle recently with Pawan Kumar Bansal taking charge of the ministry. Giving a fitting reply to Banerjee, the Congress picked the firebrand Bengal leader and “Mamata critic” Chowdhury as his deputy.
“For the sake of populism she had taken Railways for a ride. How can she announce project for a coach factory on Tata Motors’ Singur land, when the issue is subjudice. I don’t think it is going to happen. For most of her plans, she had no idea about where to find the funds from,” he added.
Banerjee and her successor Mukul Roy were adamant that they will set up the coach factory on 600 acres in Singur. She had even announced at Writers’ building that SAIL is going to do the project.
While hinting that there needs to be a hike in passenger fare, Chowdhury added, “Unless there is a hike, the development projects will have to be stalled and we cannot let it happen. Because of her moves, the accumulated funds of Railways got exhausted. In the case of Bengal, I have asked the board chairman that the change of ministers should not affect the project there at any case.”
Apart from showering many projects to the state including — the Singur project, bottling plant at Farrakha, axle factory in New Jalpaiguri, wagon factories at Barddhaman and Haldia, and a refrigerated container unit at Budge Budge — the TMC had allotted 29 out of the total 176 trains to the state in 2011-12.
