Click to play videoNew Delhi: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Railway budget speeches are the stuff of MBA classrooms.
But as he steps in to present the Rail Vote-on-account budget, it will be under the cloud of economic recession.
CNN-IBN conducted a check on whether the rail growth story stayed on track.
Lalu was greeted with a huge cheer when he announced plans to promote coolies to the position of gang men in the last Rail budget.
One year later the smiles are barely visible. So what has become of Lalu's budgetary promises is what most people want to know.
Lalu’s promise no 1: Coolies will be promoted to Gang men.
37-year-old Pooran Mal is one of the 18,000 gang men promoted last year. While he now has a stable government job, he claims that he earns much lesser than a coolie. He is a matriculate (Class 10 from the 10+2 pattern), but continues to do manual work.
Pooran Mal, another Gangman said, “I am 10th pass but I am doing what an illiterate person can do. We were promised something else but that is not what is happening now.” Pooran Mal repairs tracks like most of his colleagues.
Lalu’s promise no 2: Termination of queues at ticket counters.
In Lalu's Rail Utopia queues are an unlikely scenario. But in reality, they exist and are a huge pain to travelers and ticket vending counter staff as well.
“Sometimes we miss our train waiting,” said one. Another contends, “No point in standing in long queues for a local ticket.”
Lalu had promised 6000 automatic ticket vending machines by 2010, but so far only 300 have been installed. Till such time as they are installed, it continues to be a long wait for travelers.
Lalu’s promise no 3: New trains.
Even Lalu's dream to expand the Railways’ fleet has not chugged along as planned. He promised to add 53 new trains and 10 new low cast fast trains called garib raths to the existing fleet.
But in reality only 80 per cent of the new trains are on track and six new garib raths have been commissioned.
The much touted Varanasi-Anand Vihar garib rath, for example is no where to be seen.
Surprisingly, even the Anand Vihar railway station from where it was to start is not functional yet.
Lalu’s promise no 4: Special focus on security.
Security though, is where Lalu has spared no effort in recruiting personnel at least. 5000 out of the proposed 7500 security personnel have already been appointed.
Lalu’s promise no 5: To achieve targeted earnings.
Given the down turn in economy, this was to be the real acid test, and Lalu has managed a pass grade.
By December last year, even though the freight earnings are short by Rupees 450 crore, passenger earnings have exceeded budget estimates by close to 200 crores.
Faced with volatile air fares and a slowing economy since last year, it seems the aam aadmi (the common man) decided to travel on the rail route instead.
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