Unimaginative Budget, Say Bjp & Cong

The political reaction to the Railway Budget was on expected lines, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress criticising it as inflationary while the United Front partners either remained silent or praised Union railways minister Ram Vilas Paswan for a `development-oriented budget.

There was some murmuring among the members of parliament about the largesse showered by the minister on Bihar and Karnataka in terms of railway development projects.

However, the legislators conceded that Paswan was only following his predecessors in favouring his home state and that of the Prime Minister.

The BJP yesterday described the Railway Budget as uninspiring, routine, unimaginative and lacking in new directions and ideas and demanded that the 12 per cent stipulated increase in freight rates be withdrawn.

Senior BJP leader Ram Naik said the freight increase would be inflationary and harm the Railways long-term interests as it would divert freight to the roadways. However, he complimented the government for not raising the fare of second-class passenger tickets.

Naik said the overall budgetary exercise indicated that the government was afraid to take any bold political decisions like taking up more projects and increasing the departments budgetary allocations.

He pointed out that the real budgetary deficit would be 3, 631 crore a revenue deficit of Rs 1, 800 crore and Rs 1,831 as proposed budgetary support from the Centre and argued that most of the deficit could be made up by taking innovative measures like better land management.

Senior Cong-ress leader Pranab Mukhe-rjee criticised the freight rate hike proposed in the Railway Budget.

Mukherjee was also critical of the railway minister for not making any provision for laying new rail tracks or adding rolling stock, which he cited as the main cause for the railways gradually losing out on goods carriage to road transport.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) welcomed the Railway Budgets proposals, except for the 12 per cent freight hike, which would hit the common man. TDP deputy Lok Sabha leader Ramchandra Reddy said the budget should be welcomed by one and all in view of the Centres resource constraints.