Monday, March 15, 2010

Developments in Indian Railways

It is interesting that a majority of Railway Ministers hail from Bengal or Bihar, for reasons best known only to the Hon.ble Prime Ministers! It was Ghani Khan Chowdhury who changed face of Malda some years back; in recent years 3 Biharis - Ram Vilas Paswan, Nithish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav;  and currently Ms Mamata Didi.  Are they all serving Union Government covering the entire country or their own States?

We also had TA Pai, Jaffer Sherif, George Fernandes from Karnataka; but could or did they do enough to Karnataka? And a few names from Andhra, Maharashtra and so on?  Last week it was reported in the press that Lalu Prasad used the Special Saloons 369 times in four years - mostly to visit nook and corners in Bihar. When Railway Budget is presented, we are all eager to know only about how many new trains introduced. 

There are several thousands of unmanned railway crossings in the country, causing large numbers of accidents and deaths every day.  Is it not possible for the Minister or Government to dedicate three or four years to convert all these unmanned crossings into well protected with gates and post men to handle?  What would be the budget for such a focussed step?  Why can't it be taken on priority basis to save innocent lives.  Another peculiar news we often come across is open wells all over in which every three months some child or woman falls and dieing despite best of efforts to rescue spending lakhs of rupees.  These are the small achievements all the departments concerned should concentrate to improve the quality of life in this country.

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