Rail Min Mukul Roy sings Mamata's tune;no hike in rail fares

New Delhi, Mar 22: In yet another instance of Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee flexing her muscles to appease the common man, Union Railway Minister Mukul Roy has rolled back the passenger rail fare hike proposed to recently ousted former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi.

Roy announced a rollback of passenger fare hike in sleeper, sub-urban, AC chair car and AC 3-tier. As part of his reply in the Lok Sabha to the budget presented in Parliament, Mukul Roy said that he intended to launch an aggressive drive to mop up resources for railways. He also added in his speech that the proposal to hike fares will "impact the aam aadmi". He added, "I intend to give relief by not increasing fare in any of these classes."

Roy also stated in his reply that it was important to run the railways economically and safely and that close to one lakh people will be recruited in 2012-13. He said that all vacancies in safety areas will be filled up very soon and that unmanned level crossing will be removed. The Railway Minister has also put on hold a proposal for expansion of Railway Board.

Former Dinesh Trivedi had irked Mamata Banerjee by proposing a moderate hike in passenger fares in lieu of the financial crunch the Indian Railways was facing. The fact that she was not consulted before the proposal for the fare hike prompted Mamata to seek the removal of Trivedi from the post to elevate another strong favourite Mukul Roy to the Railway Minister's chair.

OneIndia News