NEW DELHI, April 2: Like his predecessors, new Railway Minister Nitish Kumar is finding it difficult to turn down his friends in politics.
Being the country’s Railway Minister means facing constant demands from fellow MPs for more lines, bridges, trains and halts through their states and constituencies.
Today, he made an off-the-cuff announcement that the Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani Express which passes through the constituency of Environment Minister Suresh Prabhu would make an extra halt at Sawantwadi.
Nitish Kumar was flagging off the first Rajdhani Express on the newly-opened Konkan line. Prabhu, a “guest of honour” at the function held at Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station, pleaded in his speech that the train should stop at Sawantwadi, in Prabhu’s Rajpura constituency in Maharashtra. Nitish Kumar immediately agreed to the Shiv Sena leader’s proposal.
The Railway Ministry’s press release did not go into the details. It merely noted, “Responding to a popular demand, Shri Nitish Kumarannounced that the Trivandrum Rajdhani would also stop at Sawantwadi.”
Railway officials are not pleased with the announcement. Rajdhanis, which connect state capitals with Delhi, are supposed to be fast trains with a limited number of stops.
Besides this is the second time in the last few days that a new halt has been added to the Trivandrum Rajdhani’s route. During the Lok Sabha debate on the Railway’s interim budget, Nitish Kumar had agreed that the train should stop at Calicut.
Advertisements in today’s newspapers listed only 10 stops for the train, including Calicut. There was no mention of Sawantwadi at all.
One of the first acts of the Ministry after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance took over was to announce a Mumbai Suburban Railway Development Corporation.
It was a pet concern of Minister of State for Railways Ram Naik who prides himself on having spent hours commuting on the Mumbai suburban system.
Despite criticism that his area was getting preferential treatment, Naik maintainsthe decision was taken on merit.
The 760-km-long Konkan railway line was commissioned fully on January 26, some eight years after work started.
At the ceremonial flag-off, Naik complimented George Fernandes and Madhu Dandavate who, as Railway and Finance ministers in 1989-90, helped work out the mechanism for setting up the Konkan Railway Corporation.