Nothing new in Railway Budget: Pawan Bansal

Chandigarh: Former railway minister Pawan Bansal on Thursday said that he found nothing new in the Railway Budget of 2016, except for bio vacuum toilets, adding that there should be public awareness on it.

“There is nothing new in the Railway Budget, except for bio vacuum toilets…but I don’t know how successful it will be. It is dangerous if people are not aware of it. I don’t know how much public awareness has been spread for it,” Bansal told the media here.

“He has tried to take credit for many things. He talked about dedicated freight corridor. Manmohan Singh had long back started it. Two corridors-eastern and western corridor. The grounds to make all these is very important. Important aspect is what will be teh financial model,” he added.

Bansal further alleged that the BJP-led NDA Government is repeating the old thing as done by the UPA regime. “During the UPA regime, bids for 1500 km was asked for dedicated freight corridor. If it was not passed then, there must have had been some drawbacks,” he said.

He also stated that the two locomotive factories announced are old, as it was decided when he was the railway minister.

“Whatever they have said I hope people get benefit from that,” he said. Earlier, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, while presenting the Railway Budget said co-operation, collaboration and communication are the hallmarks of Indian Railways’ journey forward.

He also said that three pillars of the strategy: Nav Arjan (New Revenues), Nav Manak (New Norms) and Nav Sanrachna (New Structures) have been laid out to reflect the new thought process.