Nominated to RS from Haryana, minister forgets payback

CHANDIGARH: Opposition parties in Haryana criticized the rail budget as no new project or rail links to the state were allocated.
Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said Union railways minister Suresh Prabhu had failed to reciprocate to the demands of Haryana, from where he has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha. "The most unfortunate part is that the Union minister did not even mention allocation for projects like coach factory at Gohana and Sonipat, which were approved two years ago."
"Barring a few, most announcements were those projected by the UPA during its rule.Not increasing the fare was a compulsion due to reduced rates of diesel. It is disheartening for us all," said Hooda.
Besides a coach factory, Dadri- Jhajjar- Farrukhnagar railway line, Gurgaon-Sohna-Nuh-Firozpur Jhirka-Alwar railway line, Hisar-Agroha-Fatehabad railway line, Yamunanagar-Sadhaura-Chandigarh and Rohtak-Meham-Hansi railway line are some of the important pending railway proposals.
INLD's chief spokesperson R S Chaudhry termed the Budget as directionless. "Improving infrastructure is a continuous process and it has to go on. Hence, one need not take any credit. Even though he announced zero increase in rail fare, that was something the UPA had also done. He should have brought down the fuel components part of rail fare," said Chaudhary.
Meanwhile, Manohar Lal Khattar complimented the railway minister for a balanced budget. He hailed the Rail Budget by terming it people friendly. He said that besides sparing passengers of fare hike, several facilities have been introduced for their convenience. "The Rail Budget is more reformative and sensible than populist and is aimed at bringing in major changes for making travelling in Indian trains more comfortable," he added.
However, commuters of Sirsa-Hisar to Delhi were unhappy. Pankaj Mehta, who hails from Sirsa, said, "Though, there has been no fare hike this time, which is good for daily passengers, no new trains were started from Sirsa to Chandigarh even though we needed it badly."