‘RAIL
BUDGET ENCOURAGES FAVOURITISM, WIDENS GAP’
Friday, 11 July 2014 | PNS | BHUBANESWAR | in Bhubaneswar
NRO writes to Modi not to
repeat UPA policy
Non-resident Odia (NRO) Prof Digambara Patra of the American
University of Beirut has strongly condemned the favouritism shown to south and
west India for political gain and the negligence shown to mineral bearing
States like Odisha, Chhattisgarh and MP in the current Railway Budget.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Patra said his NDA
Government should not repeat the same blunders of the Congress of the last 65
years of showing special favour to certain regions at the cost of the rest for
political concerns.
He said that the people of the country had a lot of expectations
from the Modi Government on even allocation of funds for growth including in
the railway sector, but things on the ground has remainedsomewhat worrying.
Prof Patra also equalled Railways Minister Sadananda Gowda with that of his
predecessors and said he was befooling the people.
“If one carefully analyses the number of projects in this
Budget, somehow the Railways Ministry had tried to woo Karnataka in various
projects: new trains (7 trains to Bengaluru alone against none to KBK-Odisha),
new survey, newlines, tourism cluster, etc. and served the interest of Gujarat
and UP largely for the Prime Minister’s political interest. Earlier former
Railways Ministers had been also doing the same: taking political interest of
their own,” said Patra.
Lamenting that the mineral bearing regions and tribal and
backward pockets of the country have always been neglected in the railway
sector because the top leaders always concentrated on the growth of their
region for political reasons, Patra called for a need to promote the
underdeveloped areas on a priority basis.
He said that locations in Odisha and Chhatisgarh, that supply
coal, iron, steel and aluminum for railway infrastructure and manufacturing
unit, are never considered for railway coach factory.
Narla road (comes under profit making ECoR zone) in KBK
districts is located at the junction of three public sector steel plants in
Bhilai (Chhattisgarh), Rourkela (Odisha) and Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). It
is also close to MCL coal blocks in Angul and Jharsuguda (Odisha). Nalco,
Balco, HAL and Vedanta Alumina are all located very close to it. Such a
location was never considered.
At the same time Chhapra (comes under loss making North Eastern
zone) and Kolkata (comes of loss making Eastern zone) were the locations
selected by the Railways for factories, he said.
MP, Chhattisgarh and Odisha have railway track less than
national average per every 1,000 sq km. But tribal and backward pockets of
these States are continuously ignored to suit political interest.
The current Railway Budget encourages favouritism and widens the
gap between backward clusters like KBK and rich cities like Bangaluru, Delhi,
Ahemadabad and Mumbai, added Patra.
