The Hindu : Business : `MPs failed to take up State's cause unitedly'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 11, 2006

Business

Business

`MPs failed to take up State's cause unitedly'

Staff Reporter

`Management of public funds far from satisfactory'

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If Kerala has not got its due in the Union and Railway Budgets, it was owing to the lack of a coordinated effort of the MPs in presenting the demands of the State before the Centre, Indian Institute of Public Administration regional chairman Joseph K. Alexander has said.

He was delivering the presidential address at a panel discussion on Union and Railway Budgets organised jointly by the institute and Department of Economics, Kerala University, here on Wednesday.

Mr. Alexander said that the MPs from the State had many demands, while those from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka presented the case of their States together and got their due. The representatives from Kerala do not come together in prioritising the needs of the State, Mr. Alexander said.

Freight traffic

Former Railway Board chairman M.N. Prasad said that the Railway Budget has given a renewed stress on regaining supremacy in freight traffic. This may help win some traffic from the roads and conserve fuel. The bid to increase freight traffic will lead to overloading of the existing wagons and this will cause fatigue to the components, he said. The fears over privatising non-core activities, including customer services, are misplaced. This will help provide better service to the commuters and the core activities will continue to remain with the Railways. The commuters can travel in clean and hygienic coaches since it has been entrusted to private contractors. This is a step in the right direction and there is no need to resist such moves, he said.

The proposed Angamali-Sabarimala line will not prove to be much useful to the State, but the Edapally-Guruvayur line has a purpose.

A large number of people in the State travel to Bangalore by bus. Considering the heavy rush, the Railway Ministry should be made to sanction one more daily train to Bangalore after cancelling the additional train to Chennai, he said.

Computerised reservation centres should be set up in the hinterland. More inter-city services and faster shuttle services should be introduced to mitigate the woes of the daily commuters, Mr. Prasad said.

Alwin Prakash, head of the Department of Economics, Kerala University, said that while projecting the 2.3 per cent growth in the agriculture sector, 9.4 per cent in manufacturing sector, more than nine per cent in the service sector and the boom in the stock market, the budget has not addressed problems like the increase in oil prices, inflation rate and the rising unemployment rate.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has adopted a populist approach by offering some sops to the agriculture sector and welfare announcing measures like old age pension with an eye on the States that are going to the polls. Instead of laying certain norms for funding select universities, the Finance Minister should have distributed the funds equitably to all universities. The chances of a stock market crash too cannot be ruled out, Mr. Prakash said.

According to former Accountant-General K.P. Joseph, Mr. Chidambaram has presented a dream budget from the common man's point of view.

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