‘Railways should transform with change of century’

Modi, whose government has decided to scrap the 92-year-old practice of presenting a separate Railway Budget, asserted that the annual ritual was never an exercise of ‘political agenda’ for him and that he had taken the ‘courageous’ decision of keeping himself ‘free from the love for political gains. The Prime Minister, who is stated to have sold tea at railway stations in his childhood, said he had special affection for the railways considering that he had spent so much of his early days at railway platforms and had seen the largest public transporter from close quarters. 

“The century has changed, so the railways should also change. There should be new speed, progress and new capacity,” he said addressing railway employees via video conferencing at the ‘Rail Vikas Shivir’ (rail development camp) being held in Surajkund on the outskirts of Delhi. He will visit the camp on Sunday, the concluding day of the event. Noting that the current century is technology driven, Modi pitched for innovation to make the railways strong. His comments came against the backdrop of efforts to introduce high speed trains in the country, for which technology and monetary assistance is being taken from Japan whose bullet train is world class. The first high speed corridor is to be built between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, construction for which will begin in 2018.