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‘Used to give numerous jobs’: Nitish Kumar demands separate railway budget

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Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has also served as the Union Railway Minister under Atal Bihar Vajpayee, made a demand for a separate Railway Budget on Friday. Nitish Kumar said it is very important to present a separate budget for railways before the general budget.

The Chief Minister said that the separate budget for railways used to provide numerous jobs to the people of the country.

“When I was the Railway Minister, we used to give numerous jobs to people. When Rail Budget was presented in Parliament, there were discussions across all newspapers,” Bihar Chief Minister said in a press interaction during his Samadhan Yatra.

The practice of a separate budget for railways began in 1924 and was continued till 2017, after which it was merged with the Union Budget. The decision came after then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley raised the issue in Rajya Sabha and then the Parliament constituted a special committee to plan the merger of both budgets.

Bihar’s Chief Minister also reiterated the demand of his government for the special status for Bihar. “I have always been listening to the problems of people since the time I was an MLA. I keep visiting places, sitting with people, and addressing their issues. We have always been demanding special status for Bihar,” he said.

Nitish Kumar welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss the petitions challenging the caste survey conducted by his government. “I was appalled when I first learnt that a petition has been filed against the survey. I read in a paper that the petitioner belonged to Bihar Sharif (the district headquarters of Nalanda). I felt like calling him up to know what was wrong with the survey,” said Kumar.

“All political parties in the state were unanimously of the opinion that the survey be undertaken. Moreover, it is intended to benefit all sections of the society. It is also a caste survey (jaatiya ganana) and not a census (jana ganana),” the Chief Minister added.

(With inputs from PTI)

 

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