Lalu promises pro-poor ‘wonder budget’, focus on faster trains

Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav said on Friday that his much lauded achievements as minister, will be nothing...

Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav said on Friday that his much lauded achievements as minister, will be nothing compared to what he is now aiming at: an unprecedented and totally pro-poor “wonder budget” for the Railways next year.

Lalu was speaking to students on the “Turnaround of Indian Railways” in the annual management excellence lecture series at the School of Management Studies of Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) here.

Each of his budgets, Lalu added, was his answer to those who had dismissed the Railways as a white elephant. He said the keystones in the turnaround story have been honesty, industry and farsightedness. He said he will now accord high priority to faster trains, and was working on several measures to improve both passenger and freight traffic.

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In order to decongest the existing lines, the Minister said he will initiate Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) for goods trains. The first two of these corridors will be developed between Ludhiana and Howrah, and Mumbai and Delhi. The next phase will have DFCs between Mumbai and Chennai and then between Chennai and Howrah.

Lalu stressed on his commitment to make the Railways “farmer-friendly”, with warehousing facilities and “Krishi Centres” for stocking vegetables, flowers, fruits, paddy and other farm produce in all the 7,500 railway stations across the country.

Meanwhile, after inaugurating the new Salem Railway Division in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, Lalu had to take a long, circuitous diversion through Madurai and Thiruvananthapuram to reach Kochi, as the BJP had called a statewide bandh to protest against the carving out of the Salem division. They alleged that the division was carved out of the existing Palakkad division of Kerala.