Nitish Kumar, the ruling Chief Minister of Bihar and former Union Railway Minister on Wednesday has bitterly criticised the present Rail Budget tabled by Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday before the Patna assembly alleging ‘Lalu’ that ‘Lalu has misled the people by playing the number game’. ‘This budget is imperfect for Bihar’, he also asserted.
Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar are well known figures of Bihar and have strong political rivalry after their separation. Responding over the Lalu’s comment - Nitish is jealous Nitish offended - Kumar said, “What Lalu has shown figures in Yesterday’s presented budget are not more than a ‘jugglery game’.
“Railways was never in the loss” said Nitish while Lalu had claimed that he had pulled the Railways from debt to profit. Lalu has claimed in his last year’s budget that Railway was in deep loss in the NDA regime while he had earned a record margin of Rs.20,000 crore in 2006-2007.
This year Lalu has shown a massive figure of Rs.25,000 crore profit with included dividend to be distributed. “If the Railways has so much of surplus, what was the need for seeking budgetary support from the union finance ministry?” asked Nitish challenging that this figure is only the play of data game.
He also criticised Lalu over the issue of not distributing the dividend in NDA regime. “Despite being advised by the finance ministry to defer the payment, the Railway Ministry took care to pay full dividend”, said Nitish.
Surprising over the presented figure of 8% growth in Railways, Nitish has asked Lalu “When the entire country is growing with 8.5-9%, why railways growth figure is only 8%.”
“Security is the major area, where Lalu has completely failed”, alleged Nitish, citing “the decreased number of accident in last few year’s was the efforts of NDA government not the UPA, while Lalu is branding himself ‘the top Railway Minister.” “It was the efforts of NDA government, which had made Special Railway Security Fund with massive Rs. 17,000 crore to face the accidental trauma, while current Railway Minister has done nothing in this area”, he further said.
On the issue of freight corridor, Nitish has also pulled the leg of Lalu criticising him that after the lading foundation stone of ‘dedicated freight corridor project’ by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September 2006 in Mumbai and Ludhiana, “not a brick has been laid so far, while we have been listing the projection of this corridor since last three years”.
The Bihar Chief Minister also attacked the effort in transforming the New Delhi railway station into a world-class tourist station saying that nothing has been done so far to execute this project. “If this pace of work continues, work cannot be completed before the Commonwealth Games. On the other hand, when I was Railway Minister, I initiated a project to transform the Ajmeri Gate side of the New Delhi station into a model station is now at the edge of completion, Kumar added.
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