Rail budget utterly disappointing, says Nitish

PATNA: Calling the railway budget presented in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday "utterly disappointing", Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has said railway minister Dinesh Trivedi has given the nation a box which is "fully empty".
Himself a former railway minister, Kumar said Trivedi made talks only in future tense and not in present tense during his 110-minute speech. "He spoke a lot, but had nothing concrete to say," Kumar said.
The CM was specifically upset over the neglect of pending railway projects in Bihar. "This is sheer injustice and discrimination against the state," he said and added what should cause more concern to the country was the fact that the railway ministry was going slow on all its projects across the country.
The railway minister has given least attention to safety measures even as the number of accidents has been going up in recent years, Kumar said and added the "budget in annexure" (in an obvious reference to Trivedi's oft-repeated reference to annexure in the budget) offered nothing for railway users. "Freight rates are increased many times in a year. Yet, the fares have been increased in an 'apologetic' manner," he said.
According to deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, the railway budget has upset the common people. "Trivedi has applied brakes on all the pending railway projects," the BJP leader said and added his party would appeal to the MPs to press for a rollback of increased fares.
Leader of Opposition in state assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui was also critical of the "anti-Bihar" railway budget. "If we compare this budget with those presented by Lalu Prasad, it is very disappointing," the RJD leader said and regretted most of the projects launched during the tenure of Lalu as railway minister were yet to kick off and no budgetary allocations had been made for them.
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