Apparently next year's assembly elections in mind, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday doled out goodies for West Bengal that includes several new trains and new coach and other rail-related factories.
Striking an emotional chord with Bengalis, she also announced a number of measures in the memory of Rabindranath Tagore by proposing museums in his name in Howrah and Bholpur, a train running between India and Bangladesh and Sanskriti Express to commemorate the poet's 150th birth anniversary.
Asked whether she was partial to Bengal, she said "do not humiliate (West) Bengal" by parroting it (the allegation) ...Your question is totally politically manipulative."
Kolkata figures as one of the two cities where double- decker trains will be introduced as a pilot project while 11 out of 94 declared as 'Adarsh' stations are from her state.
Kharagpur and Bolpur figure in the list of ten stations which will be converted into World Class Stations while 17 of the 93 stations in Bengal will be developed as multi-functional complexes.
A bottling plant in Farakka and a sports academy in Kolkata were the other projects Banerjee announced in the budget.
Nobel Laureate Tagore was another source of inspiration for her budget proposals. Marking the 150th anniversary of "Kabiguru" Tagore, Banerjee proposed to set up a Rabindra Museum in Howrah and a Gitanjali Museum in Bolpur.
Banerjee also announced the re-modelling of Bolpur station, inspired by the architecture of Shantiniketan. She also announced the setting up of Shambu Mitra Cultural Complex with performing arts and a music academy at Howrah.
Twenty-two stations in Bengal have been earmarked to get out-patient departments and diagnostic centres, 17 will get secondary-level general speciality hospitals while 11 others will have tertiary-level multi-speciality hospitals.
She also proposed the setting up of a state-of-the-art advanced loco pilot training centre in Kharagpur to strengthen the skills and abilities of loco pilots. Coochbehar and Malda are among four cities which are selected for setting up multi-disciplinary training centres.
Kharagpur, where the IIT is located, will also have a Centre for Railway Research to give a thrust to indigenisation of the PSU. Another facility awarded for Kharagpur is a Centre of Excellence in Wagon Prototyping.
Besides these, she also announced the modernisation and expansion of Chittaranjan Locomotive Works.
A coach factory is being set up in Kancharapara apart from Palakkad in Kerala while Railways has expressed its willingness to set up a similar facility in Singur if the state government provides land after returning 400 acres of land to those unwilling farmers.
A diesel multiple unit factory at Sankrail is another goody from Banerjee.
Wagon manufacture factories in Haldia and Bardhaman and Workshop for Heavy Axle Load Wagons in Dankuni are other rail-related factories for Bengal. PTI
