Feb 25, (PRINTWORDS NEWS) Mamata Banerjee‘s populist Railway Budget marked by no hike in passenger fare or freight charges has been welcomed and appreciated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday. Manmohan Singh stated that the railway budget of 2011 as proposed by the railway minister would help the nation to reduce inflation.

Speaking to the media, Manmohan Singh said,  “It is a common man’s budget without increase in freight and passenger fares, thereby it will help to weaken cost push element of inflation.” Railway Minister Mamata Banerhjee whose proposed Railway Budget plan was lauded by the common man, made it a point in Lok Sabha that the budget takes care of both – the Aam Admi’s necessities as well as the infrastructure of the less developed areas. Her concern for the North East and Jammu and Kashmir – where she proposed to set up a railway factory to increase the employment rate and industry growth has been appreciated by the countrymen. The minister who presented her third railway budget in Lok Sabha also proposed setting of a 700 MW gas-based power plant in Thakurali-Maharashtra. She also proposed setting of a diesel locomotive industry in Manipur and to set rail lines in overlooked and underdeveloped regions.

Mamata Banerjee’s railway budget 2011 has been the talk of the town with several anti-Mamata, anti-UPA coalitions taking a dig at the proposed budget, billing it as a complete ‘failure’. But differentiating himself from his counter parts, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appreciated the railway minister’s efforts and said she had done a “commendable” job. With so many lives lost due to Naxalite attacks on the railways, the only disappointment that crippled the budget a bit was railway minister’s defense on the security point of view.

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