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I hail from Tamilnadu – elected from Madurai – an ancient temple city, famous for Meenakshi Amman Temple, a tourist and pilgrim centre.

Sir, I bring to your kind attention that the doubling of MDU-DG is taking its own time for completion Rs. 96 crore was allotted to this project. Now, in the current budget 2004-05, only a paltry sum 3.22 crores has been allocated. With this small amount, the doubling project may take longer time. As such the project is so vital for connection to West and North of Madurai. Since the single track system giving more constraints to run and introduce more trains from Chennai to South of Tamilnadu. The project assures more significance considering the traffic volume of passenger and well as goods.

Sir, based on the CMP the Govt. is committed to enhancing the well being of workers. Sir, various measures proposed in the current budget regarding the welfare of the unorganised section of Railway is highly appreciated by all.

Sir, I am sorry to say that we the Keralities are not satisfied with this Budget. The Govt. of Kerala as well as the opposition under the leadership of Shri V.S. Achudanandan and MP’s from Kerala have placed petitions before the hon’ble Prime Minister and Railway Minister for establishing a Railway Zone in June which will definitely take care of the development needs of Railways in Kerala. But the request had not been considered. At this juncture I further request on behalf of Kerala, to you to consider seriously our demands for separate zone in Kerala, in spite of the objections now prevailing both technical and administrative. Moreover, the structural allocations of funds for the ongoing projects for electrification, doubling of line, gauge conversions etc. comes to 183.74 crores. Sir, it is true that the current year budget allocation is higher than that of previous year (128 crores) but the proposal is insufficient. Sanctioning of doubling of lines may be done in a single stretch manner covering Shoranur – Mangalapuram and Ernakulam – Kayarkulam. We are deprived of having a new train. This diminished the brightness of the favourable attitude shown in the R.B. Sir, while concluding my speech let me say, this budget is being the first attempt of UPA Govt. in the lines drawn by CMP where common man is not burdened through fare hike as usual. This is a matter of pride and again first time in the history of our country. In a way almost all sections in the society are satisfied with this budget. I hope these directions of the budget perspectives will continue in future too.

The prime concern is new passengers’ safety. Unfortunately after Mr. Yadav became the railway minister there has been some rise in the crimes in the long distance trains. The Rail Minister has taken some steps. But these are not enough. These should be deal with very strongly. Otherwise, the passengers safety would be in jeopardy.

I shall turn to some of the rail problems in my constituency Joynagar. Mr. Yadav, after becoming the Rail Minister wrote to MPs inviting their suggestions. I also gave my suggestion to the hon’ble minister. But it appears that he has turned a blind eye to my suggestions. I shall now bring to his attention to some of the long standing problems in my Constituency. Before this I would like to tell him how much money has been sanctioned for the two important ongoing projects for the Sonarpur – Canning (Phase-I) doubling of rail line in this year’s budget only one crore has been sanctioned. Similarly for the Baruipur – Lakshmikantpur doubling one crore has been sanctioned. The former rail minister Mr. Nitish Kumar had sanctioned one crore in his budget for each of the project. I had expected that Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav would not follow footsteps and would sanction more money. But this has not been done. If the work goes on like this it will take several decades for the completion of the two important doubling projects which are most vital for the passengers. Moreover, there has been no drinking water and usable toilet facilities at every station starting from Sonarpur to Canning and Baripur to Lakshmikantapur station. This is a perennial problem faced by the passengers. Even though I have raised this problem over the years here has not been any progress.