Corruption Watch

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<b>Laloo gets Railways to gift home seat 1,000 cr plant</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is on a roll—from one controversy to another. After that bizarre storm in a kulhad, <b>he has now unwrapped a Rs 1000 crore gift for Chapra, his constituency in Bihar: a Wheel and Axle plant that the railways don’t really need.</b>

And, within days of the Minister waving the wand, Chairman Railway Board (CRB) R.K. Singh, who was on that special train with Laloo, issued a two-line note that made it official: ‘‘The MR (Minister of Railways) has desired that a Wheel and Axle plant should be set up at Parsa village near Chapra. The MM (Member Mechanical) may initiate further action on this immediately.’’

Work on the project has already started, even as sources reveal that the railways simply do not require another Wheel and Axle factory.<b> They point out that the existing one at Yelanhanka, near Bangalore, is already under-utilised and running at a heavy loss.</b>

Besides, Laloo’s move makes a mockery of the railways’ modernisation and reform policy. ‘‘<b>The loans which railways have taken from foreign funding agencies, including the Asian Development Bank, hinge on various conditionalities such as the one which stipulates that no new production units would be set up. Even the Rakesh Mohan committee had suggested hiving-off and privatising existing production units,’’</b> the official explains.

Obviously, Laloo doesn’t know, or does he? have the balls to say the obvious
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