Meet Lalu, the man who never hiked fares

ASK LALU: It has been his fifth consecutive budget and fares have been crashed across the board.

        

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Keywords: Railway Budget 2008, Ask Lalu

It has been his fifth consecutive budget and fares have been crashed across the board. He is certainly going down as a man who has never hiked fares.

Anubha Bhonsle: Even before you sat down to prepare this budget, you had it very clear in your mind that you are not going to hike fares. Is this right?

Lalu Prasad Yadav: Absolutely right. This is our motto and by not increasing the fares, the railways are not in a loss. There are already profits and goddess Lakshmi's blessings are with us. The railway workers are working with us shoulder to shoulder. The targets that we set, we work and strive to achieve them by working day in and day out.

Anubha Bhonsle: Today's budget can be called a populist budget?

Lalu Prasad Yadav: Populist! This is the fifth budget and almost 70,000 crore's surplus earning and expenditure is done and one year is left. After that one-year we will tell how progressive we have been and how much surplus we are left with.

Anubha Bhonsle: Which budget has been most challenging for you?

Lalu Prasad Yadav The fifth budget has been challenging. People have been asking that if the fares have been slashed, how will the railways work. I just told them that I am the railway minister and I will show how the railways work. I told them that the railways are working fantastically well. I have said in today's budget that all classes, without discrimination of being poor or rich, all of them will benefit.

Anubha Bhonsle: The point is that there is an entire list in railways, so to say sops.

Lalu Prasad Yadav: Yes we have cut fares across all sections.

Fares have been cut across all classes between 3 and 7 %. There is a 5 per cent cut in diesel and petrol freight. There is a 6 % concession for freight to northeast region. There are experimental green toilets in all trains. About 195 stations will get foot over bridges. Low-level platforms will be upgraded to medium and automatic ticket vending machines will be increased. An entire line up of 53 new trains has been announced.

This has caused a bit of controversy.

RK Bagdi, Kolkata: Mr Minister, what steps are you going to take to improve the cleanliness on the railways. As a common passenger, we find that the railway coaches are so shabby and are totally unhygienic.

Lalu Prasad Yadav: Bagdi ji, if you have heard my speech today, you must have noticed that in the last four years cleanliness on stations has been increased. Right in the morning, it is very dirty, however, we have tried to improve it by using various products. In our country, there is a lack of civic sense and people think that railways are a scrap yard. They dump most of the scrap of their homes in railways. I promised initially that all train toilets would be able to soak the dirt, like the toilets in flights. The toilet dump will not fall in the railway tracks and that has been implemented. The promise of clean railway toilets and platforms has to a great extent been fulfilled. All this takes time.

Venkatesh, Bangalore: The crowd is increasing day by day and the platform facilities not getting enhanced. We expect something in every budget, and it seems that nothing is really done about these issues. Why?

Anubha Bhonsle: An entire lineup of questions from Aprajita in Assam, Kiran in AP, Sarat in Kerala are there and they seem to feel that your focus is towards the north of the country and as far as the south and the north east are concerned, they feel they do not get your attention.

Lalu Prasad Yadav: They are mistaken. South includes Kerala and Bangalore also. Jaswant Puri junction was opened for people and also the Mangalore stations. More and more projects in Bangalore are coming up. I am not a minister of north and Bihar. I care for each and every state. Every state is allocated with a budget but the problem that we have is how to spend the money allocated. There are obstacles in work. We do not get the land in time. Sometimes, there is a temple or a mosque somewhere. We have to make bridges. People hamper projects. It is easy to give suggestions, but it is difficult to implement projects.

Anubha Bhonsle: A big announcement by you left many in the railway workforce very happy. Is your announcement regarding coolies or who are now being promoted to gangmen.

Lalu Prasad Yadav: For the past so many years, there are people of the last strata in the society, which if you survey, you will find out that it has Muslims, minorities, poor who have no means to earn their bread and butter. They are fit and healthy. People from the backward classes or the Dalits have e been since ages acting like brothers to the passengers, taking them to the right coaches and helping them with the luggage. With the new technology, the suitcases can be dragged easily. Parcel leasing is also given to the contractors. So these people have no work and have no way to earn their bread and butter. We have now decided to make them like gangmen. The reason is that people are so rash in certain places that they need to be monitored and controlled. Tractors get on the way. Recently children died. It is our social responsibility to prevent any mishaps. So now the gangmen, the trained man will be giving duty on the gate.

Anubha Bhonsle: You have talked about automatic vending machines, e-ticketing on e-mail or internet or through SMS.

Pankaj srivastav, Patna The service of ‘tatkaal’ ticketing, which now you plan to begin 60 days in advance, makes the meaning of ‘tatkaal’ absolutely redundant?

Lalu Prasad Yadav: Tatkaal, the meaning will be significant. You will stop worrying about going anywhere 60 days in advance. For ticket reservations, we have managed to reach even the secluded farm areas. We will give agencies to the unemployed youth also to sell the tickets in far-flung areas. The main motive is to decentralize the whole process.

Anubha Bhonsle: The meaning of that question is that if someone has to go somewhere within 24 hrs, then there is no meaning of ‘tatkaal’ for the person now.

Lalu Prasad Yadav: If they have to go urgently, it is not that the person will not get the ticket. Sometimes people plan beforehand when they have to go somewhere. So it works out in most cases.

Anubha Bhonsle: You don’t believe that this particular budget is a vision statement for 2025.

Lalu Prasad Yadav: You have to have a vision. And if you don’t have an alternative then all plans are useless. You have to have alternative plans.

Anubha Bhonsle: There was a citizen journalist in the Shatabdi express who has shot a video showing how a cockroach is running around the food served. He asks, was the cost of the insect offered to me in the meal, included in the cost of the ticket as well?

Lalu Prasad Yadav: The cockroach is alive. It is not offered to you in your meal. The explanation is that people throw their used plates and left over outside and when the train is at the platform, the rats and such insects like to get a comfortable bed and place. That’s when they creep in. However, the way the bugs have disappeared, in the same way, the cockroaches will also disappear from the railways.

Anubha Bhonsle: Your five year tenure as a railway minister continues till next year. You enjoy being a railway minister Lalu ji?

Lalu Prasad Yadav: I was not interested in becoming the railway minister at all. Next year, when my tenure is over and our government comes to power, I will take another department and not railways. I had asked them to make me the home minister or give me defence. I had earlier heard and seen a lot about railways, however, now all sentiments are attached to the railways. I am trying to contribute to my nation in some way or the other. I do not care if the world believes or it doesn’t, I have not allowed any kind of corruption creep in the railways department. I have not allowed my family or other MP's or politicians to do anything wrong in the railways. It has been a fair tenure.