The Congress on Thursday said that Railway Budget presented by Suresh Prabhu is only a bundle of long term promises which may only be fulfilled by 2020, in his own words. The party said the budget has come as a huge disappointment and is best described as low on content and high on rhetoric.
In a statement, it said budget conceals more than what it reveals and fails on all benchmarks that affect the people at large. “Since the Modi Government already increased the rail fares by 20 per cent since it assumed office, and has taken several anti-consumer, anti-people steps when it comes to increasing ticket prices and cancellation prices — it does not surprises us that they haven’t raised any fares. They raised the passenger fares when the Parliament ended, and they will do the same through back door this time too,” alleged former MoS Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
He said no roadmap at all for ensuring punctuality of trains, except for citing reasons for the delays. “At best the people are promised 95 per cent punctuality by the year 2020. This itself is an admission that there has been no substantial improvement in eliminating the reasons for delays except for suggesting to State Governments to stagger office timings, which in the scheme of things is impractical if not impossible to achieve,” he added.
The party also mentioned that announcement of booking 7,200 tickets per minute on the IRCTC website was already in place as the UPA implemented it under then Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.
AICC chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala said entire business community and sensex have given a thumbs down to Prabhu’s ‘Rail Budget’.
“Sensex has fallen below 23,000 i.e. a hundred percentage points and most rail stocks derailed by 2 per cent to 5 per cent. Even cement companies have seen a decline in value of stocks from 1 per cent to 5 per cent,” Surjewala said in a statement.