India: Price hike in petroleum products will affect railways

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October 4, 2000 India: Price hike in petroleum products will affect railways

JAMSHEDPUR: The increase in prices of the petroleum products is bound to affect the Indian railways, the Union minister of state for railways Digvijay Singh said here on Monday.

The minister, however, refused to elaborate on the impact of the increasing oil prices. Asked if the oil price hike could lead to revision of railway tariff, Singh insisted that he was accountable to Parliament and would discuss the issue there.

Singh admitted that the Indian railway hasn't been able to execute many of its projects because of lack of funds.

There's no dearth of new schemes. About Rs 20,000 crore alone is needed to set up new lines. But we just don't have enough money for all the projects. Everyone is aware that the budgetary support to the railway has been curtailed substantially. The minister suggested that the resource constraint could be overcome by participation of the states in which the new schemes are to come up.

"I have written to all the chief ministers in this connection. The Konkan railway is a good example of state participation. We have had four state governments besides the railway involved in the project," he said adding that the participation of the state governments would also help in prioritizing schemes. Asked to comment on the first government of the Jharkhand state, the Samata Party leader maintained that minus Sibu Soren of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) that government in the new state would be weak and unstable. "My party wants to have a strong and stable government for effective governance of Jharkhand."

He hoped that a common consensus could be reached among the NDA partners on the chief ministership issue. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the JMM appear to have serious differences on this count. The BJP has the maximum number of legislators in Jharkhand, but the JMM would have enough strength to tilt the scale on Bihar. The minister quipped that he was somewhat baffled by the loss Bihar would suffer after creation of Jharkhand. Even with Jharkhand, Bihar was the poorest state of the country. Has anything good happened in the state in the recent past?

About 4 crore people have migrated from the state. Bihar's plight is the result of political failure in the state and everyone at the helm of affairs is responsible for it.

http://www.timesofindia.com/041000/04mpat5.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), October 04, 2000


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