Mamata's balancing act

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has decided to keep states like Jammu and Kashmir,

Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal under her direct supervision while allocating equal work to her two junior ministers.

She has entrusted her two ministers of state with seven states each.

While Minister of State E Ahamed will look after Bihar, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Assam and Jharkhand, the other MoS K H Muniayappa has been allocated Karnataka, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, according to a railway ministry notification.

She has ensured that two ministers are given equal responsibilities.

Ahamed will look after punctuality of trains, ticket checking and cleanliness with general upkeep of railway premises and complaints regarding passenger trains.

Muniyappa has been entrusted with the important responsibility of looking after safety and security of railways besides level crossings, construction of roads over and under bridges. He has also been assigned to look after complaints regarding goods traffic and cases related to the Pay Commission.

In a balancing act, Mamata has asked Ahamed to handle replies to unstarred questions in the Rajya Sabha along with resolutions, assurances and monitoring of assurances while Muniyappa has been asked to handle replies in the Lok Sabha.

Muniyappa has been asked to approve items for inclusion of rolling stock programmes not exceeding Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million).

Ahamed has been given responsibility to look into staff grievances, incentive schemes for production units, labour legislation related work.