Railway budget satisfactory, say industry bodies

The industry chambers have welcomed the Railway Budget 2010-2011 announced by Minister of Railways Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday. Some of the proposals announced by the minister will lead to modernisation of Railways and propel economic growth, Bangalore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCIC) said.

The involvement of public-private partnership (PPP ) model to operate special freight trains, maintenance and improvement of amenities in railway stations, setting up National High Speed Railway Authority for introduction of High Speed Rail corridor, setting up of a special task force to clear proposals for investment within 100 days, exploring ideas for new business models will result in modernisation of the Railways, the BCIC said in a statement.

BCIC hailed the railway minister for announcing auto hubs to ancillary industries, high-speed train corridors to port connectivity and multi-level parking to mine connectivity, among others.

“We are happy that some proposals submitted by us to the railway minister at the pre-budget meeting on February 6 are accepted,” BCIC said.

The chamber had demanded the introduction of multi-level parking complexes through the PPP route, introduction of special freight train under PPP to carry commodities such as automobiles, vegetable oil, molasses, chemicals, petrochemical and bulk traffic like fly-ash, cement, among others.

BCIC has also welcomed the proposal to have new survey lines and hope this will be translated into reality in the next Budget. The proposed survey for the Belur-Sringeri and Mysore-Kushalnagar-Madikere lines will undoubtedly boost the tourism sector and economy of the plantation sector to a large extent.

However, BCIC has expressed its disappointment over the absence of any station from the state for conversion into world class station.

J Crasta, president, Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) commended the railway minister for appreciating Karnataka government’s role in coming forward for railway projects under a cost sharing basis. However, FKCCI would like the ministry to take up on an urgent basis the completion of Hubli-Ankola line and the container connectivity to Mangalore Port which would help the industry and trade immensely, he said.