Populist tinkering now, vision later

The flamboyance of former railway minister Lalu Prasad gave way to a rather conservative Rail Budget 2009-10 presented by UPA’s new railway minister Mamata Mamata, who decided to continue with most of Prasad’s policies but clipped the freight loading to a more realistic target of less than 6% over that achieved in 2008-09.

For 2009-10, Mamata has estimated her cash balance will be 26.5% lower at Rs 14,201.27 crore. Accordingly, in her first Rail Budget presented under the UPA on Friday, she has decided to be prudent on the financial front, eschewing the lure of cutting passenger fares. She also left freight rates untouched. But she has managed to fulfill her earlier promise of providing monthly season tickets of Rs 25 to those with a monthly income of less than Rs 1,500—called izzat—along with announcing fare concessions to students and youth while promising on-board infotainment on the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis.

Her largesse has been concentrated on West Bengal. She has extracted a series of projects for the state, including a new locomotive unit, a coach factory and another 1,000 MW

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Chances of first Nano rolling out of Singur look remote

Sunday was an unusual day of expectations for the people of West Bengal and the Indian industry. As news spread of West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee meeting face-to-face for the first time over the Singur issue in the presence of governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, every one looked forward to a break through. But it was not to be. As Mamata imposed fresh conditions, after almost reaching a breakthrough, and the governor called off a press meet schedule for Sunday night, it became clear that the first Nano car will not roll out of the Singur plant.

At the time of going to press, news is trickling in that another round of meeting is going on between the trio of Buddha Mamata-Gandhi. But as someone commented, Singur is proving to be more difficult than the nuclear issue, since a breakthrough was possible in Vienna but not in Kolkata.

PWD minister and RSP leader KshitiGoswami told reporters at the CPI(M) party headquarters that a consensus was reached by both sides on the formation of a four member committee to go into the demands of farmers to return their land.

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