SRMU criticises Centre's move to privatise Railways

Chennai, Sept 27 (UNI) The Southern Railway Mazdoor Union (SRMU)today strongly condemned the Central Government's indirect move to privatise the Indian Railway network in a phased manner.

Talking to newspersons here, C A Raja Sridhar and N Kanniah President and General Secretary respectively of the SRMU alleged that though the Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad declared on the floor of the Lok Sabha that the Government would not privatise the Indian Railways under any circumstances, he had indirectly supported the privatisation at the instigation of the International Monitary Fund (IMF) and World Bank(WB).

Mr Sridhar and Mr Kanniah further alleged that all the bureaucrats had totally misguided the railway ministry and Mr Prasad was blindly supporting the indirect privatisation of the Indian Railways.

They cited a few examples of the alleged indirect privatisation and said the railway ministry had already handed over the issuance of railway tickets to the private parties, and today laid a foundation stone for exclusive goods transport corridors under the public-private participation scheme, move to privatise the passenger train services, among others.

They warned that if the railway ministry did not give up such indirect privatisation moves ,the SRMU would launch a direction action programme.

The matter was taken up with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK Chief M Karunanidhi for suitable remedy, they added.

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