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“How did surpluses deplete so fast?”

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on Friday that the Railway budget presented in Parliament reflected a marked deterioration in the financial position of the railways and sought to know why it had declined so rapidly.

It said last year’s budget reported a Rs. 20,000 crore cash surplus which came down to Rs. 13,500 crore in the interim budget presented in February. It was now down to Rs. 8,700 crore.

“The UPA government owes an explanation for this serious deterioration in performance. Why has the cash surpluses of the railways depleted so rapidly in such a short span of time?” the party Polit Bureau said in a statement.

It said the economic slowdown had evidently affected the revenues adversely, especially from freight traffic, with the estimates for receipts revised downwards from the targets set in the interim budget which Ms. Banerjee described as “unrealistically high.”

Ms. Banerjee, it said, had failed to come up with any fresh ideas to tackle the situation and turn around the declining revenue situation. “Rather, she has chosen to take recourse to the same flawed route of privatisation through PPP projects in a host of areas.”

The Railway Minister’s reliance on several PPP projects, from development of 50 “world class stations,” new freight and coach terminals and logistics parks to special purpose rolling stocks and perishable cargo centres seemed completely misplaced at a time of economic recession when private investment was hardly forthcoming, the statement said.

The Minister had herself admitted in her speech that out of the Rs. 3,400 crore earmarked in the Annual Plan for 2009-10 for resource mobilisation through PPP, “Rs. 3300 crore would just not materialise.”

This contradiction in the Minister’s approach overshadowed some positive measures announced in the current budget like no hike in passenger fares, Rs. 25 monthly ticket for people earning less than Rs. 1,500 a month or a special recruitment drive to fill vacancies in railway posts for SC/STs, physically challenged, minorities and women. The allocations for crucial areas like railway modernisation, safety and electrification were also inadequate. The CPI(M) demanded that the moves towards privatisation and outsourcing in the railways, which received a major thrust in this year’s budget, be reversed.

Meanwhile, party leader Basudeb Acharia said the proposals appeared to have been prepared with the 2011 West Bengal Assembly elections in mind. Responding to a question whether the proposals read like a Trinamool Congress manifesto, Mr. Acharia said: “Yes, it is almost that.”

CPI national secretary D. Raja described it as “over enthusiastic and ambitious” and expressed doubts about its implementation.

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