Banerjee announced the addition of two trains — Delhi-Secunderabad and Delhi-Nagpur — to the 12 non-stop Duranto trains already announced. She said that two of these would start plying this month itself.

Citing instances of violence over recruitment of outsiders, she threw her weight behind a 50 per cent quota for locals in the Railway Recruitment Board selections. Declaring that the recruitment process would be looked at afresh, she said that she favoured the use of local languages in Railway recruitment exam questions papers.

Banerjee said that while she was against the eviction of the poor already settled on Railway lands, she would ensure there was no further encroachment. While ruling out corporatisation of the Railways, she said the Railways would go in for a healthy blend of the public and private sector practices. She said that the Railways would lease out three lakh acres of land to generate funds and set up medical colleges where 50 per cent of the seats would be reserved for the wards of the 14 lakh Rail employees while the remaining would be open to the public.

At times, Banerjee struggled to make herself heard above the din after members across parties stood up to articulate demands pertaining to their constituencies with Speaker Meira Kumar intervening to restore order. While the CPM and the Trinamool Congress desisted from a confrontation, the House witnessed some lighter moments when BJP's Ananth Kumar demanded that she promise to present a white paper on the working of the Railways and a vision document for the future on the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament. Banerjee quipped that while she could not predict when the requisite procedure for preparing both documents would be complete, the documents would nonetheless, be "colourful", not just black and white.

She promised to convene an all-party meeting, including members of the Planning Commission, to discuss the creation of more infrastructure.