Not enough investment in railways infrastructure before 2014: Goyal

Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday accused sucessive governments and ministers before 2014 of not making investments in upgrading railway infrastructure.

He also alleged that earlier ministers had made announcements without any capital back-up.

"Former Railway Ministers and governments before 2014 did not invest in upgrading the infrastructure. They kept making political announcements without adequate capital to invest. The entire network got overloaded. Some sections are running on a 150-180 per cent capacity," he said after an interactive session organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce.

He said announcements were made but were never backed up with capital.

"As a result of it, a less amount of money was spread over so many projects and nothing was getting completed," he said.

Goyal also urged passengers to demand a bill while travelling and according to him, POS machines would be provided to the catering staff so that they can give bills.

"Demand a bill from the railway catering staffs. If no bill is given, then refuse to pay. My officers will deal the matter," he said, adding that this would plug revenue loss.

On railways projects in West Bengal, he said the budget allocation had been increased and reviewing a number of projects.

After holding a review meeting on metro projects in the state, the minister also said the elevated 7.5 km portion for the ongoing East-West metro project would be operational by March 2019.

--IANS

bdc/vd