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I now come to another unpleasant issue. There was no crying demand for bringing the fares down, certainly not from those who travelled AC First, AC Sleeper or AC Chair Car. They would not have minded if the Railway Minister had maintained the status quo for they choose the higher classes of their own volition, only after making sure that they can afford it. The fare reduction of those classes are not also such as to attract significantly more passengers. Similarly, the tinkering with freight reduction too will have only a marginal effect on prices, if at all. There is no specific assurance in the Budget speech that so many new trains will not cause serious traffic congestion and affect the quality and regularity of track maintenance and that they will not compromise safety consideration. New passenger trains also eat into the time and space for movement of goods train which are not only the chief bread winner of the system but also keep the sinew's of the economy strong. Any operational decision that slows them down will have a cascading effect in the sense of pulling down the volume and velocity of transactions in all resorts. For these reasons, the Traffic wing of the Railway Board had always been opposed to excessive number of new passenger trains.

Railway Minister has made a number of announcements relating to new trains, low­ering the train fare etc On a careful study, one finds that a number of New trains can only ply after around 7 to 8 years because tracks are not there and in many places gauge conversion is necessary, which may take years. I wll give one example which is very glaring. It is announcement of running a new passenger train from Hajipur to Phulberia. This Phulberia is a wellknown place because of the Railway Minister. But a passenger train can only ply after new track is laid. Can it be done in the ensuing financial year? Will this passenger train ply in 2008-09? I leave it to your wisdom. Similarly there are a dozen of new trains that are announced by Railway Minister which can ply only after tracks are converted from Narrow gauze to Broad Gauze.

I take this opportunity to reiterate again that for the speedy development of infrastruc­ture in Orissa, Indian Railways should provide a package which includes allocation of funds for ongoing projects, sanction of new lines, introduction of new trains, extension and increase in frequency of mail/ express trains, and improve passenger amenities. There is an urgent need to complete Daitary-Banspani BG rail link and introduce coaching services in this sector. Rail link costruction work between Bhawanipatna to Junagarh should start immediately. There is a demand to extend Naupada-Gunupur BG rail link to Thiruvali which would enable increase in cargo generation at Gopalpur port. Two projects, such as Khurda Road-Bolangir and Haridaspur-Paradeep proposed rail link is progress­ing at a very slow pace. In these new rail lines the rate of return is high, yet I fail to under­stand why Railway is not allocating funds for completion of these two projects in a time bound manner.

The survey report of Talcher-Gopalpur Broad gauze rail-link is before the Ministry which has indicated a favourable rate of return. The recent thrust of industrialisation in Orissa with setting up of Steel, Power and Aluminium Plants would require a dedicated railway link between Talcher to Gopalpur for export and import of raw materials and finished products. However, I must thank Railway Minister for starting 4 new trains and increasing the frequency of Rajdhani Express. The new train connecting Allahabad to Sambalpur was a long pending demand which has been adhered to. I would urge upon the Minister to con­sider starting a new Express train from Paradeep to Mumbai which would connect the east-coast to the western shores of our country. In this Budget, attempt has been made to recognise the problem of unmanned level crossing and congestion at busy level crossing which needs Road over bridge. Two such Road overbridge are essential in and around Cuttack now. One at Gopalpur and another at Kapilash Road-Tangi. Necessary steps may be taken to include these two projects in this years Budget.