‘Pioneer-Dilli Billi’- 14th.March.2010

I was always amused by our Railway Ministers. I will start with Laloo Prasad here who was a P.R specialist. I must congratulate our Railway Ministers for their ambition. It is so far sighted that they loose focus somewhere in between. They promise the sky in their budget speeches but drop the common man somewhere in between.
Mamata Banerjee’s budget proposals are so ambitious that everyone was stunned. The brightest of minds failed to understand how she will ever fulfill such promises. She has given Kamal Nath a run for his money by making a promise of 1000 kms of new tracks in one year. Kamal Nath’s performance will really be on test here but I am sure he is not worried at all because in the last fifty years the Railway has managed only a 180 kms per year. But if Mamata does manage to do this with the help of great officers that her Ministry has she will create history.
I travelled the other day in a train after a gap of two years. I must say I was highly disappointed by how the quality of food and hygiene has come down. I was a great supporter of Railway travelling before this trip. I have been travelling by the Shatabdi very often and thoroughly enjoyed the food and the quality of service that it gave to it’s passengers. But this trip, I was aghast that how ugly everything was. The compartment was stinking, the seats were dirty, the trays were oily and the food tasted stale. I was actually ashamed even at the uniforms of the waiters serving. They were crumpled and stained. The toilets the less said the better.
I as a frequent traveler on these trains I would request the Railway Minister to stop being highly ambitious. I would much better ask her to bring up the quality of the trains. It has gone down stead fastly. I have never felt so ashamed and sorry of advising my foreigner friends to undertake a Railway journey but would never recommend it hence forth. A friend of mine who asked for a thaali got food poisoning. The T.T kept changing everyone’s seat according to his wishes and how much he was paid for it even and above one wonders. And there was no one to complain too. I would much better prefer Mamata to give a passenger security while travelling, cleanliness, security for women passengers, punctuality of trains and polite attendance.
It is not a bad idea for the Railway Minister to give instructions to the officers in the Railway Ministry to make sure that her vision for the department is fulfilled. It also won’t be a bad idea for the Minister to spend some time in the Rail Bhawan personally. She owes it to the people of the country. Atleast when she takes over as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. May her ambition be fulfilled in the next Assembly elections in West Bengal but not at the cost of the nation as she heads the Railway Ministry please.