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Railways not in pink of health: Gowda
Girja Shankar Kaura
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 8
Taking the previous railway ministers, including those part of the previous BJP-led NDA government, head-on for the mismanagement of the Indian Railways, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda today painted a chilling picture of the public transporters finances.

While painting a pretty bleak picture of the Railways, Gowda pointed out that the ministry has failed to meet most of its operational costs and made it clear that 94 paise of every rupee earned was spent on the Railways itself when it didn’t have adequate funds for safety and improvement of facilities.

“While prudent efforts should have been made so far, the passenger fares were not kept rationally,” Gowda said and pointed out that freight rates had been periodically raised but passenger fares had been left alone.

Pointing out all the problems in the Railways, Gowda targeted not only the previous two Congress-led UPA governments and its political compulsions to allow the allies led Railway Ministry to be used for populism, but also the current ally Ram Vilas Paswan, who has remained railway minister in the past.

As his fellow MPs shouted “shame, shame”, Gowda pointed out “in the last 10 years, the Indian Railways invested Rs 41,000 crore on new lines,” and added that less had been spent on doubling railway lines.

Gowda also offered chilling insight into how railway ministers have courted folly by announcing projects, which were not completed.

Of the 99 projects taken up in 10 years costing Rs 60,000 crore, only one had been completed, the minister pointed out.