The much-awaited interim budget of the Railway Minister turned out to be a dud for Mumbai’s suburban commuters. For, the minister made no specific mention about Mumbai rail commuters or suburban rail services operational in four Indian cities.

“Some 1.25 crore people use the railway as a means for commuting. Of these, some 9 million commuters use the suburban services (6.5 million in Mumbai, 1.7 million in Kolkata and 8 lakh in Chennai). So, the fruits could only be enjoyed by 25 per cent of the passengers who are not frequent users of the railway unlike the suburban rail commuters,” said former Union Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, who was also the Minister of State for Railways. “But the reduction in fare in some segments is welcome.”

It has to be noted that it was Lalu who had reduced the minimum fare of the suburban fare to Rs 4, which was Rs 5 earlier.

Commuters, too, were disappointed as the budget had nothing for them. “The budget is quite disappointing. We had expected more since it was an interim budget before the Lok Sabha elections,” said Madhu Kotian, convenor of Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh.

“With last week’s Borivali agitation still fresh in the minds of people, the railway minister did not utter a single word on improving the services,” said Shailendra Kamble, convenor of Pravaas Adhikar Andolaan Samiti (PAAS). “The budget also did not mention anything about the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) Phase II, which will amount to Rs 5,300 crore. Last year, the ministry had allocated only a small sum for this phase.”

In effect, there was nothing for the commuters of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) — which will now send 11 MPs to the Lok Sabha — in the interim railway budget.

However, for the long-distance commuters Lalu had some good news as he announced some new trains and extension of a few. The Mumbai-Varanasi super fast and the Vereval-Mumbai will now run daily; the Mumbai-Bikaner super fast, the Mumbai-Tirunelvelli super fast and the Machhalipatnam-Mumbai super fast will be bi-weekly; and the Mumbai-Karwar super fast will be tri-weekly.

Hits & Misses
WHAT CAME
* Mumbai-Varanasi super fast, Vereval-Mumbai daily
* Mumbai-Bikaner superfast, Mumbai-Tirunelvelli superfast, Machhalipatnam-Mumbai superfast biweekly
* Mumbai-Karwar super fast triweekly
* A handful of new trains