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Bong Banerjee makes Bengal gay, bury Bihar

PATNA — The railway budget presented by Mamata Banerjee on Friday reflected her politics. She extended a bounty of new projects and trains to her home state, West Bengal, and gave Bihar, the home state of former railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, a miss.

Banerjee gave Bengal a rail coach factory and four of the 12 new long-distance, non-stop trains, but none for Bihar, which got no new rail line either.

Of the 18 new trains announced for Bihar by Lalu Prasad in the interim Budget in February 14 have been scrapped by Mamata.

Of the 57 trains announced on Friday, a mere 4 are meant for Bihar.

Mamata cancelled three projects announced by Lalu Prasad for expansion of railway tracks in Bihar while giving the state just one of the 55 new lines she announced in the budget.

The Indian Railways will develop 375 ‘Adarsh Stations’ (model stations) during the year 2009-10 with basic facilities such as drinking water, adequate toilets, catering services, waiting rooms etc. These stations will also have dormitories especially for lady passengers, better signage and other basic facilities. The railways has already identified 309 stations to be developed across the country. Of the 309 stations identified to be developed as ‘Adarsh’ stations, 181 are in West Bengal and only 6 in Bihar (Biharsharif, Madhubani, Patna Sahib, Sitamarhi, Sultanganj and Kishanganj).

Bihar has also been denied the facility of non-stop trains as announced by Banerjee. Out of 12 non-stop trains announced, Bengal would get 4 with no such facility extended to Bihar.

About 50 stations are to be developed into world class stations with international level facilities. Banerjee proposes to modernise three stations in and around Kolkata (Howrah, Sealdah and Kolkata) to world-class standards, but Patna doesn’t figure in the 50 on this list (it figured in the top 15 list during Lalu Prasad’s tenure as the rail minister). Gaya is the only station in Bihar that figures in the new list.

She has proposed new railway lines for Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh, the three political hotspots in West Bengal, and a 1,000-Mw power plant at Adra, next to Lalgarh. The onus of acquiring the land for the new projects is on the Left Front government in the state.

Banerjee will extend the Kolkata Metro to Barrackpore, a suburb north of the city, which is considered a CPM bastion but elected a Trinamool Congress candidate in the Lok Sabha elections.

Almost every leader from Bihar except JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar and Congressmen lashed out at the railway minister for ignoring Bihar.

“Nothing has been given to Bihar. Bihar has been thoroughly sidelined in railway budget 2009”, the BJP MP from Bhagalpur, Shah Nawaz Hussein said.

Also read :

• Rail Budget : Nitish happy, Modi unhappy
• What’s in it for Bihar
• Highlights of Railway Budget for 2009-10