By IANS,
New Delhi : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley Tuesday criticised Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee for taking the Indian Railways into “non-core areas”, and said that will threaten its economical and social viability.
“The fundamental principle of any efficient management is to concentrate on core area of competence and ignore all non-essential and non-core activities,” Jaitley said while participating in a discussion on the railway budget in the Rajya Sabha.
“Railways’ getting into areas which do not fall within the domain of the Ministry of Railways under the Allocation of Business Rules, is not merely retrograde and detrimental to the interest of the railways but against all efficiency norms,” he said.
Jaitley was referring to Banerjee’s budget proposals such as construction multi-functional complexes including malls and restaurants, budget hotels and laying down of optic fibre network throughout the country, among others.
Advising the railways minister to be candid about the real state of railways accounts, the leader of the opposition in the upper house said: “It is generally felt that the true picture of the railway accounts has been concealed and camouflaged.”
Jaitley alleged that parliament and the country were repeatedly misled that there has been no hike in passenger fares between 2004 and 2009, as various components of passenger fares, other than basic fare, such as reservation charges, super-fast charges, cancellation charges and clerkage charges were revised.