Mamata showers ‘rail gifts’ on WB

Financial chronicle

July 3: The railway minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee, on Friday attempted to outdo her predecessor, Mr Lalu Yadav, by announcing a slew of measures for the “Aam Aadmi.”
She also used the budget in good measure to thank her supporters who helped her rout left parties from West Bengal.

Although she did not touch fares, Ms Banerjee did her bit by either announcing new projects or by tweaking the existing ones to appease most sections, including Trinamul’s strong vote-bank, the minority community. In an effort to strike the right chord with the youth that now constitutes nearly two-thirds of country’s population, she announced special “Yuva Trains” and expanded the scope of student concessions.

She also became the first railway minister to include madrasas, centres of learning for Muslims, in the ambit of concessions being extended to other educational institutions.

The free monthly season tickets for second-class travel between school and home for girl students up to graduation and for boys up to 12th standard will be extended to those attending madrasa.

Besides, the minister also extended a scheme that gives 60 per cent concession on monthly season tickets to students attending school up to class 12th as well as madrasas for travel in Kolkata Metro rail. She also tried to appease women by promising “ladies only” EMU train services from Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

“Railways will encourage creation of facilities for setting up cold storage and temperature controlled perishable cargo centres and its transportation through public private partnership mode,” she said.

Interestingly, out of the 57 new trains announced by Ms Banerjee, at least 31 will touch some station or other in West Bengal, her home state. As if to buy peace with her predecessor, at least 21 of them would also touch stations across Bihar.