Mamata slams Centre for proposal to close 8 rail routes

Kolkata Jan 19 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday strongly protested the Ministry of Railways proposal to close down eight routes of the Eastern Railways in Bengal and termed it as the Centre s political vengeance against the state.

"This is an instance of Centre s negligence towards the state. An insult to Bengal. The trains on these routes were started during my time in the Railway Ministry. It is nothing but political vengeance of the Centre. We will not tolerate this " Banerjee said at the state secretariat Nabanna.

The commercial department of the Eastern Railway had issued a letter to the state government on January 17 seeking its consent for the closure of eight "commercially non-viable" railway routes in Bengal unless the state bore 50 per cent of the losses.

Taking a dig at the Centre on this issue Banerjee said "How can they take such a decision without discussing it with the state government? This is a central government project why will the state pay?"

According to the Eastern Railway letter the eight routes which are proposed to be stopped are Burdwan-Katwa Sonarpur-Canning Santipur-Nabadwipghat Barasat-Hasnabad Baruipur-Namkhana Ballygunj-Budge Budge Kalyani-Kalyani Simanta and Bhimgarh-Palastali.

--IANS
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