Mamata’s resignation means bad news for her projects

She has been successful, partly by bringing quite a few projects and gifting as many facilities to the state, which even fetched her the unhappy epithet of “Minister for West Bengal Railways”. Now, the people as well as Railway officials — among whom she has developed a sizeable fan following — fear that like it usually happens with railway projects, all will be put on the backburner once another Minister takes over.

Look at the statistics. During the past one year, only the Eastern Railways has got six new projects going in full swing. Apart from them, two important projects — like the Digha-Tamluk railway in South-Eastern Railway and Eklakhi-Balurghat in North East Frontier Railway — have been brought out from the cold storage.

“After Ghani Khan, no other Railway Minister had done anything for West Bengal,” Deepak Chatterjee, Manager of a bank in central Calcutta told The Indian Express, referring to A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chaudhury, who was Railway Minister in Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet. Choudhury’s contribution towards the completion of several projects, including the Metro Railway, is widely accepted in the state. “She should at least see to it that the projects are finished and then resign otherwise, it will make a serious dent in her popularity,” Chatterjee said.

Even top officials of the Eastern Railways echo this sentiment. “It’s natural that after a Railway Minister leaves office, the projects initiated by him or her are put on the backburner,” a top manager of Eastern Railway said on condition of anonymity. “When we got to know of her resignation, we were sad. After all, the new projects brought employment to so many people in this poor state. Mamata is answerable to all those people,” the official added.

Another Railway security official said that Mamata’s departure would not augur well for the new projects she had undertaken.

Mamata’s pet projects
1. Modernisation of Sealdah station — construction of a seven-storied building with various passenger amenities, shopping plaza etc. Construction of a subway there. Project cost: Rs 11.17 crore. Allocation in the budget for current year: Rs 4 crore. Though already Rs 8 crore had been spent.
2. Bankim Setu over the Hooghly: Tenders floated.
3. Doubling of Sonarpur — Canning railway track in South 24 Parganas district. Project cost Rs 36 crore. Final location survey done.
4. Doubling of Bruipur — Lakshmikantapur track also in the South 24 Parganas district. Final Location Survey complete. Project cost Rs 49 crore.
5. Doubling of Sheorapully — Tarakeswar track. Final survey complete.
6. Construction of a new track between Tarakeswar in Hooghly district and Bishnupur in Banmkura district.

Apart from these, Mamata also opened six new computerised reservation terminals in the state and undertook construction of a swimming pool of Olympic standard near Behala in south Calcutta and construction of sports stadium at Subashgram also in South 24 Parganas district. Eight new trains have also introduced and six old projects given a boost