Chandigarh: Former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal today criticised the Railway Budget presented by current minister Sadananda Gowda, saying that the budget is more focused on small issues than major issues.
“The Rail Budget presented in the Parliament is focused more on the minor issues and is neglecting the major issues,” said Bansal.
“They have actually criticised the former railway ministers by saying that their approach was not rational and that the revenue of the railways was wasted all this time,” he added.
He further said that the rail budget does not highlight any step that would make Railways any better, and added that there was nothing new in the budget.
On proposed FDI in Railways, Bansal said, “I had said that FDI is necessary. However, the BJP was always against FDI. They had staged a walkout of the session then.”
Commenting on the introduction of Bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, Bansal said, “The idea of Bullet Trains is not new. The UPA government had discussed this with some foreign companies then. But today, we should focus on semi-high speed trains. They should raise the speed of the present trains.”
Earlier today, Union Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda presented the Railway Budget for fiscal year 2014-15 in the Lok Sabha.