Broke railways caught between Pranab, Mamata
Last Updated : 29 Jan 2012 10:00:04 AM IST
NEW DELHI: Sandwiched between Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Railway Minister and TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi is huffing and puffing all the way to the Rail Budget. Mukherjee isn’t giving him money to take the Railways out of the red and make rail travel safe for the common man; his boss Banerjee won’t let him hike fares, keeping her populist constituency in mind.Forget employment generation and labour-intensive schemes, or the woes of a middle class debilitated by high interest rates, the Congress would rather spend on elitist and urban schemes, such as Rs 8,814 crore on the UIDAI; Rs 3,471.01 crore as a bailout for ailing private airlines and spread the urban reach of the Metro at a cost of Rs 1,052.2 crore. So, for Trivedi, it’s a precarious rope to walk: getting money for the Railways while keeping Didi happy and allowing him to retain his ministry in Delhi.Sitting alone in his corner room in Rail Bhawan, the minister has been plaintively seeking funds from Mukherjee to keep his cash-strapped, moribund domain from going off the rails. When Banerjee was the railway minister from 2009 to 2011, her eyes were set on Writer’s Building in Kolkata rather than the financial graph of her ministry. Trivedi inherited the mess Banerjee created. His primary job is to clean it up. By his admission, the Railways need Rs 9,000 crore for the coming fiscal.He doesn’t know where he is going to get it. But Trivedi is in no position to annoy either his benefactor Banerjee or Bengal heavyweight Pranabda. The railway minister says with a nervous laugh: “No, there are no misgivings about the Rs 2,000 crore (soft loan the Indian Railways sought from the finance minister and drew a blank). Forget about that, now we need Rs 9,000 crore. Don’t worry, we will generate it.’’How Trivedi plans to is anyone’s guess. Caught between a rock and a hard place, both the Railway Budget and the General Budget will be left to Didi’s mercy. Or Dada’s grace. Banerjee’s firm ‘No’ to a fare hike has Trivedi squirming, “I’ve other ways of generating funds—I cannot give the details now before the budget, but we’re getting there,” he explains lamely. With the Centre withholding resuscitatory funds, its doubtful the Railways will get anywhere in a hurry.
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