Mamata doles out goodies for WB ahead of assembly polls

Apparently next year's assembly elections in mind, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee today doled out goodies for West Bengal that includes several new trains and new coach and other rail-related factories.

Striking an emotional chord with Bengalis, she also announced a number of measures in the memory of Rabindranath Tagore by proposing museums in his name in Howrah and Bholpur, a train running between India and Bangladesh and Sanskriti Express to commemorate the poet's 150th birth anniversary.

Asked whether she was partial to Bengal, she said: "Do not humiliate (West) Bengal" by parroting it (the allegation) ...Your question is totally politically manipulative."

Kolkata figures as one of the two cities where double-decker trains will be introduced as a pilot project while 11 out of 94 declared as 'Adarsh' stations are from her state.

Kharagpur and Bolpur figure in the list of 10 stations which will be converted into World Class Stations while 17 of the 93 stations in Bengal will be developed as multi-functional complexes.

A bottling plant in Farakka and a sports academy in Kolkata were the other projects Banerjee announced in the budget.

Nobel Laureate Tagore was another source of inspiration for her budget proposals. Marking the 150th anniversary of "Kabiguru" Tagore, Banerjee proposed to set up a Rabindra Museum in Howrah and a Gitanjali Museum in Bolpur.