Rlys float out of R-Day parade

The Railway Ministry, trying to sell various schemes to consumers, failed to sell its Republic Day tableau to the government despite two pre...

The Railway Ministry, trying to sell various schemes to consumers, failed to sell its Republic Day tableau to the government despite two presentations.

For the first time in almost a decade, there will be no Railways tableau passing through Rajpath as the concepts and designs presented by the ministry failed to meet the mark. A committee, headed by an additional secretary in the Defence Ministry, and comprising eminent people from the field of culture, rejected the models presented by the Railways as 8216;8216;unimaginative and mundane8217;8217;.

Railway Ministry officials had first gone with a model showing the Nilgiri Mountain Railways, recently accorded World Heritage Site status by UNESCO. 8216;8216;It was rejected on grounds of both concept and aesthetics,8217;8217; sources disclosed. The Railways had presented Mumbai8217;s Victoria Terminus in its tableau last year.

The Railways sent a request for another presentation and then went with the theme of modernisation. It showed the achievements and modernisation of the railways in the past one year, including the Jammu-Udhampur railway line8212;all of it arranged on a set of a platform.

8216;8216;This too did not go down well with the committee. One of the members even said that they had been reading all about it in the huge advertisements released by the railways in newspapers. They all wanted something different and creative,8217;8217; an official said.

However, the Railways did not take the rejection well. They sent feelers to the Defence Ministry, pointing out how their tableaux had always won some prize or the other continuously for the past five years. Minister of State for Railways R Velu also wrote, asking the Defence Ministry to reconsider, but to no avail.

Official railway sources chose not to make too much of the rejection. 8216;8216;Actually, the government had curbed the number of tableaux this year for security reasons. Since they were allowing only 21 tableaux, some subjectivity in selection was bound to creep in. It is just a matter of chance that the Railways could not make it,8217;8217; an official said.