07-08-2009, 01:16 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Stick to trains, Jaitley tells Railway Minister</b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Debate on Rail Budget in RS
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha <b>Arun Jaitley on Tuesday charged Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee with running a parallel Government and overstepping her brief by announcing several projects like building medical colleges, restaurants, stadia and power plant in the Railway Budget not related to her Ministry.</b> <!--emo&
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The senior BJP leader urged the Prime Minister to examine the issue, and if need be, seek an opinion from the Attorney General.<b> Jaitley said announcement of some schemes by the Railway Minister amounted to gross constitutional violation of business rules.</b>
Initiating the debate on Railway Budget in the Rajya Sabha, he said schemes like constructing restaurants, nursing and medical colleges, multi-purpose centres, laying down optical fibre network, constructing stadia in all the railway divisions and a power plant did not fall in the ambit of the Railway Ministry.
He also demanded the scrapping of Tatkal scheme for reservation in trains and said it led to artificial scarcity of tickets.
Jaitley said the Railway Minister did not pay attention to strengthening core areas of her department and instead focussed on these proposed projects. Claiming that Mamata wanted to start a debate on economic versus social viability of the railways, the leader of opposition said the core area of the railways was providing top class facilities to passengers and increase in freight carrying capacities.
Mamata Banerjee, who was present in the House, refuted Jaitleyâs charge about running a parallel Government and said the <b>proposed colleges were meant for wards of railway employees and it was a welfare measure for over 14 lakh railway employees.</b>
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Railway Ministry always under Bihar or WB MP, Why?
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Debate on Rail Budget in RS
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha <b>Arun Jaitley on Tuesday charged Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee with running a parallel Government and overstepping her brief by announcing several projects like building medical colleges, restaurants, stadia and power plant in the Railway Budget not related to her Ministry.</b> <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> The senior BJP leader urged the Prime Minister to examine the issue, and if need be, seek an opinion from the Attorney General.<b> Jaitley said announcement of some schemes by the Railway Minister amounted to gross constitutional violation of business rules.</b>
Initiating the debate on Railway Budget in the Rajya Sabha, he said schemes like constructing restaurants, nursing and medical colleges, multi-purpose centres, laying down optical fibre network, constructing stadia in all the railway divisions and a power plant did not fall in the ambit of the Railway Ministry.
He also demanded the scrapping of Tatkal scheme for reservation in trains and said it led to artificial scarcity of tickets.
Jaitley said the Railway Minister did not pay attention to strengthening core areas of her department and instead focussed on these proposed projects. Claiming that Mamata wanted to start a debate on economic versus social viability of the railways, the leader of opposition said the core area of the railways was providing top class facilities to passengers and increase in freight carrying capacities.
Mamata Banerjee, who was present in the House, refuted Jaitleyâs charge about running a parallel Government and said the <b>proposed colleges were meant for wards of railway employees and it was a welfare measure for over 14 lakh railway employees.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Railway Ministry always under Bihar or WB MP, Why?