New Delhi, Jan 23: With the stage set for the Assembly polls in West Bengal in April, Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee is all geared up for a repeat show of last year's Railway Budget, by not hiking passenger fares and by announcing a marginal rise in freight rates, thereby adding some more crores to the Rs 4,500-crore cross subsidy.Highly-placed sources in the railway ministry said Ms Banerjee has already started clamouring for a higher budgetary support as also deferring dividend payment.
Railway Board officials confirmed that Ms Banerjee, who has been off and on pressing for an oil price rollback, is unlikely to take the unpopulist move of hiking the passenger fares herself.
On the freight front, the Railways cannot afford to hike the already high rates since they will just about meet the 475 million tonne (mt) target for 2000-01.
A senior board official said a not-so good performance on the freight front during the first three quarters of 2000-01 made the Railways target a conservative 4 to 5 per cent growth in freight volume for 2001-02.
Therefore, the forthcoming budget is expected to set the freight target at 500 mt. Freight target is crucial to the Railway Budget as it is the first step towards making budgetary estimates for revenues.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
