Advantage Bengal,but others gain too
During presentation of the Railway budget,a group of MPs held up Railway Minister Mamata Banerjees speech,accusing her of favouring Kolkata and Bengal.
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During presentation of the Railway budget,a group of MPs held up Railway Minister Mamata Banerjees speech,accusing her of favouring Kolkata and Bengal.
For many,her reply that she was proud to be able to shower Bengal with schemes and projects only highlighted her partisanship towards the state ahead of the coming assembly elections.
But a closer scrutiny shows a fine distinction between the provisions of 2010 and 2011. The minister seemed to have managed a good balancing act this time,tactfully tagging virtually all new projects for Bengal with other states to show an even-handed distribution of largesse.
For two biggest projects,however,Mamata chose Singur and Nandigram a thank you of sorts for their role in catapulting her to political advantage in the state. Of the new rail-based industries,Singur in Hoogly district has got one of the most prominent ones.
Land has not been made available by the state government, Mamata said in her Budget speech. But several landowners have volunteered to sell land directly to Railways… I propose to set up a metro coach factory on the land purchased from willing sellers at Singur or at adjacent Polba.
The project cost of the recently inaugurated Rail Industrial Park at Jellingham (Nandigram Block I) in East Midnapore,has been included in this budget. The project,slated to be completed by 2016,will produce a cluster of diverse railway industrial units.
Also,a Centre of Excellence in Software will be set up at Darjeeling,under the aegis of Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS),the professional IT arm of the Railways. Mamata also proposed to undertake a Joint Venture to set up a manufacturing unit at Howrahs Uluberia for indigenous production of large on-track machines. She also proposed the establishment of a new track machine POH facility at the same spot.
Bringing Darjeeling into the scheme of things is being read as a clever move. Over the years,Railway budget has largely been restricted to token and sometimes symbolic allocation to the heritage Darjeeling Himalayan railways. Mamata has now moved beyond that and expects tacit support from the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha.
A large number of projects are going to be undertaken in the Kolkata Zonal Metro,the countrys only metro services under the Indian Railways. Thirty-four new services will be introduced here.
While Bengal tops the list of states where new rail lines will be laid,Mamata has very intelligently devised the projects,connecting other states with most of them. Several new lines are to be laid within the state also,like Bangaon-Kalyani,Ranaghat-Duttapulia,Digha-Balichak,Hasnabad-Samsherganj,Baruipur-Furfura Sharif-Arambag,Sainthia-Chowrigacha via Kandi,Singur-Nandigram among others.
Of the four new railway lines will also be set up at inaccessible and under-developed areas ¿ mostly under the threat of Left wing extremism ¿ one line,running from Bhadutola to Jhargram via Lalgarh is in the Maoist-hit district of West Midnapore.
We want underdeveloped areas to develop and the people of these regions to join the process of growth, she said. Raining sops for Sunderbans,which so far still has little or no railway connectivity,Mamata announced five new lines in the area.
An assessment of the projects shows that all areas of the state from Darjeeling Hills to Maoist-hit West Midnapore,Singur and Nandigram and even Sunderbans ¿ were on radar of new projects,giving advantage to Bengal for the coming Assembly elections.
Bengals pie
* The Centre for Railway Research (CRR),collaboration between
IIT,Kharagpur and RDSO,has been sanctioned and is under implementation.
* Highest number of Adarsha stations 17 of 42 in a single state
* Coaching terminals at Dankuni
* Training centre frontline staff at Kharagpur
* Multidisciplinary training centre at Kolkata
* A new basic Training Centre at Kurseong
* Polytechnique centre at Machlandpu
* Rail tourism connecting Dooars,Tarapith,Belur,Tarakeshwar,Furfura Sharief.
* 50 suburban services for Kolkata,highest in the country 47 for Mumbai,9 for Chennai and 10 for Secunderabad
* Passenger services: Siliguri-Dinhata Passenger (daily)
* Diesel-multiple unit (DEMU): Sealdah-Jangipur,New Jalpaiguri-Balurghat,Radhikapur-New Jalpaiguri,Sealdah-Bhagwangola Lalgola,Krishnanagar-Behrampore Court
* Magnetic electro-motor unit (MEMU): Midnapore-Jhargram,Jhargram-Purulia
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