Staunchly declining to comment on personalities, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee says there are enough assets with the organisation to enable a sustained improvement in operations which will also push development. Edited excerpts:
On May 28, 2010, Maoists derailed the Jnaneshwari Express, killing 148 passengers.
Although Mamata Banerjee's white paper points out areas of concern, it lacks the courage to confront them, says A K Bhattacharya.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee presented the Railway Budget on Friday. In her third Railway Budget speech, Banerjee said atleast one doctor will be available on long distance trains.
Presenting the Railway Budget for 2010-11 in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said that there will be no hike in freight tariff.
They may be on the same side of political power, but that did not stop Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and her predecessor Lalu Prasad from taking pot-shots at each other during the presentation of Railway Budget in the Lok Sabha.
She appealed to the business houses to join hands for building partnership with Railways.
The funding for Metro Railway projects will be hiked by 5 per cent.The Kolkata Metro will be extended inside the city.
The Indian Railways will set up mobile e-ticketing centres at hospitals, universities, courts, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), district headquarters and village panchayats, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said while presenting the Budget on Wednesday.
The Indian Railways will not be privatised. It will remain with the government, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said while presenting the Railway Budget in Parliament on Wednesday.
The Indian Railways will be the lead partner for Commonwealth Games. Special trains will run during the Commonwealth Games.
Fifty-seven new trains were proposed by the railways minister Mamata Banerjee as she presented he Railway Budget for 2009-10 in Parliament on Friday.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday visited the victims of the accident in West Midnapore in West Bengal, in which at least 75 people were killed.
Out of 120 trains announced in last Budget, only three remain to be flagged off because of lack of broad-gauge lines, Banerjee said.
The Indian Railways will launch 56 new trains, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee should focus more on safety of passengers and development of infrastructure instead of launching new projects "every now and then", the CPI (M) said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday described as 'absurd and baseless' Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's claim that central security forces for anti-Maoist operations were being misused by the Communist Party of India-Marxist.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee will present the Rail Budget on July 1.
The Indian Railways will flag off 117 new trains as planned.The Railways will also introduce 52 new trains in FY11.
At the Trinamool Congress rally in Lalgarh on Monday Union Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee condemned Maoist leader Azad's death in a police encounter, embarrassing her government which has resisted calls for an investigation into the incident. Some questions
"Why is the Prime Minister silent? Will the Centre continue operations against Maoists after the Railway Minister's statement that Operation Greenhunt will be stopped," BJP Deputy Leader Gopinath Munde said in Lok Sabha.
A former Indian Police Services officer, who lodged an FIR against Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and was considered very close to the Left Front government during Jyoti Basu's tenure, is among five former police officers contesting the West Bengal assembly polls on Trinamool Congress tickets.
Fund balances for the current financial year have already been revised downwards by the ministry from the budgeted Rs 5,062 crore to Rs 3,100 crore.
Triumphant over the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in making it swallow threat to quit the United Progressive Alliance government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked the party managers to strike a similar hard bargain with Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress for alliance in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Budget presentation on Monday was in sharp contrast to his colleague Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's disorderly and oft-disrupted performance.
Banerjee wants the two top leaders of the United Progressive Alliance to nudge the Planning Commission into including some of her most important initiatives in the Railway Budget.
Dismissing West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's criticism of Duronto Express, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said the importance and success of the train cannot be diminished.
Being a coalition partner of the Congress at the Centre need not be a deterrent for Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress to join hands with the BJP elsewhere. Konthoujam Sarat of the Trinamool Congress on Thursday won the Konthoujam by-election to the Manipur legislative assembly. It was the first election victory of the Trinamool Congress in the state. Last year, it had won five assembly seats in Arunachal Pradesh.
The full page advertisement that claims that Mamata was wearing rubber slippers manufactured by Ajanta Company, was published in June 21 edition in Sambad Pratidin, a Kolkata-based Bengali newspaper.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, it appears, is peeved with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram over the punishment being meted out to government servants on charges of corruption.
The meeting of the GoM, according to sources, will be attended by several senior ministers, including Home Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister A K Antony, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and Telecommunication Minister Kapil Sibal.
As Railway motormen brought Mumbai to a standstill, MPs, including from Congress, on Tuesday paralysed functioning of Parliament over the issue, expressing solidarity with striking employees and targeting Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee for failing to avert the situation.
The Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Kapurthala rolled out the country's first air conditioned double-decker coach for oscillation trials on the Delhi-Muradabad section.
CST Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Howrah, Sealdah, Thiruvanathapuram, Chennai, Bhopal, Madhura Junction, New Jalpaiguri and Kochi are some of the stations that will be modernised.
Dismissing suggestions that the Rail Budget was West Bengal-centric, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said those raising the issue are 'humiliating' the state and advised journalists not to ask 'politically manipulative' questions.
"The running of Bharat Teerth is to emphasise our unity in diversity and bring to reality Kabiguru's (Rabindranath Tagore) words in our national anthem Punjab Sindhu Gujarat Maratha, Dravida Utkala Banga, Vindhya Himachal Yamuna Ganga," railway minister Mamata Banerjee said.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to present a populist Railway Budget on February 24, leaving passenger fares untouched but rationalising the freight rates keeping the essential commodities aside.
If necessary, she said, the Railways would provide scholarships. Banerjee, while inaugurating a railway reservation counter at Gariahat area, announced railway connectivity to Maoist-hit areas in West Midnapore and Purulia districts with introduction of two trains on February 13.
The Congress on Saturday expressed anguish at Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's absence in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's engagements at the Science City in Kolkata and described her public outbursts against United Progressive Alliance government's policies as 'an embarrassment'. "It is sheer embarrassment for the Congress party when a major ally of the UPA government, particularly its seven ministers in the Union ministry, criticises central government policies in public.
Among the proposals considered today includes a project to construct a railway link between Rohanpur and Singhabad to facilitate transit traffic from Bangladesh to Nepal through India. Railway ministry sources indicated that the ministry had no objections to opening the additional transit route to Bangladesh.
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