Mamata knocks at UPA top brass for new projects

With West Bengal assembly elections round the corner,Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee seems to be keen to unfurl a promising budget entailing new projects and new railway lines. With the Planning Commission shooting down her wish-list of new projects arguing that given the poor financial health of the state-run transport monolith,this was impossible. Banerjee has been meeting the top brass of the UPA government to get the last minute approval of the projects.

Sources said the Planning Division of the Railway Ministry had initially proposed that during the next year,focus would be on augmenting existing infrastructure and not committing on new proposals,which would add to the backlog of the existing projects. But recently she is understood to have suggested new projects including at least four new railway lines (one understandably for Rae Bareilly) ,which the Commission officials refused to agree. Sources in the Rail Bhawan said the Trinamool Congress supremo has been meeting all concerned during the past four days,including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Plan panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to secure at least an in-principle approval so that she could announce in the Budget.

Sources said Banerjee has merely succeeded in securing a Gross Budgetary Support of Rs 22,000 crore,an increase of slightly more than Rs 5,000 against her proposal of Rs 39,000 crore. They said she intended to come out with a budget of more than Rs 63,000 crore,but has been restricted to less than Rs 44,000 crore and that too with a rider that Railways would generate internal resources of about Rs 23,000 crore,which is unlikely to happen due to poor traffic growth projections (of just 6-7 per cent),sources said. Sources said the Plan Panel has asked the transport monolith to lay focus on strengthening the existing projects including the Dedicated Freight Corridors and giving facelift to stations.