New Delhi: After Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi was forced to quit even before the House debated the Rail Budget, the fate of the entire Budget has become uncertain. Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister demanded Trivedi's resignation for hiking passenger fares for the first time in 10 years.
The BJP is likely to demand a statement from the Government on what it intends to do on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's demand.
The Rail Budget has been tabled in the Lok Sabha and the House would decide on passage of the Budget, but a partial roll-back is possible.
With Mamata Banerjee's party making it clear that passenger fare hike was unacceptable, Congress leaders have deliberated on the possible options before the UPA Government to pass the Railway Budget.
Putting a question mark on the fate of the Railway Budget, Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to remove Trivedi as the Railway Minister after he took the bold and politically suicidal decision of an across-the-board increase in passenger fares, the first since 2002.
Trivedi, a Trinamool Congress MP from Barrackpur in West Bengal, came under scathing attack from his own party soon after he presented his maiden Railway Budget in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday in which he proposed to mop up an additional Rs 4,000 crore for spending on railway safety by increasing passenger fares across all classes.
While pointing out that passenger fares were subsidising freight rates and so they need to be rationalised, the Railway Minister increased the passenger fares by 2 paise per km for suburban and ordinary second class; 3 paise per km for mail/express second class; 5 paise per km for sleeper class; 10 paise per km for AC Chair Car, AC 3 tier and First Class; 15 paise per km for AC 2 tier and 30 paise per km for AC I.
The fares would be rounded off to the next nearest five rupees and the minimum fares and platform tickets would now cost Rs 5.
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