Deve Gowda terms rail fare hike unnecessary

Former prime minister and Janata Dal SecularJD-S) chief H.D. Deve Gowda on Saturday described the centre's decision o hike railway fares as unnecessary.

He also questioned the Government's logic over arriving at this decision, hen the parliament was supposed to convene in two weeks time for the udget session.

"In my personal opinion there is no need to make this price hike announcement, when the budget session is going to be held from 7th of next month. Within 15 days heaven would not have fall down...," Gowda said.

"The stand the railway minister has taken the same thing could been dicussed in the floor of house and the opinion could have been expressed by all the parties whether to roll back or not. It is an issue ultimately to be decided by the parliament," he added.

The JD-S chief although batted for more funds for the railways to avoid accidents that are happening, but reminded the prime minister over its implications when his main plank while fighting the elections was to tackle price rise."Railway needs little more funds, now number of accidents have been increasing and we are all watching. Safety is a major issue," he said.

"But the only thing is the present minister who fought the elections throughout the country four issues were his main issues, price rise;corruption;unemployment; protecting the interest of the farmers, Now here will be so many implications on account of this price rise of railway fare," Gowda added.

"Atleast some experienced people are there in the parliament they could have ventilated their feelings how best to move forward.They could have thrown much more light. If he was a wise man he would not have announced this," he further added.

BJP led NDA government on Friday decided to raise passenger fares by 14.2% and freight charges by 6.5% effective June 25 which will help Indian Railways raise an additional Rs 8,000 crore in the financial year.

The budget is expected to be announced in the first week of July. By tradition, the railway budget is announced two days before that.

The fare increase had been proposed by the previous government in the interim budget but was put on hold because of elections.