Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday opposed the linking of the railway fare with fuel price saying that it will affect the common man.

 

"As regard the proposal for linking railway fare with fuel price, I apprehend that this will affect the common man and expose them to vagaries of fluctuations in fuel price," he said in his reaction to the railway budget presented by Railway Minister D.V.Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday.

 

On the allocation made for Odisha, Patnaik said his state had requested projects worth Rs.3, 160 crore but only projects worth Rs.1, 420 crore has been proposed.

 

"You all know that the state government has agreed to provide 50 percent cost of construction and land free of cost for Bolangir-Khurda project. An amount of Rs. 100 crore has been kept in the railway budget for the same," he told reporters here.

 

"We have a serious concern about creation of new zone for Seemandhra by bifurcating Visakhapatnam (zone). We have raised serious objections to this and hope the ministry of railways will consider our just request to protect the interest of backward region of Odisha," he said.

Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday dubbed the railway budget for 2014-15 disappointing as its proposals failed to meet the expectations of the people in the state.

 

"The first rail budget, presented by D.V. Sadananda Gowda, who hails from the state, is disappointing, as it falls short of our expectations and does not meet the needs of our people," Siddaramaiah said in a statement here.

 

Lamenting that the budget failed to do justice to the southern state, he said some of its proposals such as implementing many projects through PPP (public-private participation) mode indicated that Gowda was preparing to hand over the railways to the private sector.

 

Recalling that Gowda's predecessor, Mallikarjun Kharge, who also hails from the state, had presented a pro-passenger interim budget for this fiscal Feb 12, the chief minister said Gowda's budget was anti-people, as he had already increased passenger fares by 14.6 percent and freight rates by 6.5 percent, making commuting in trains and transporting goods costly.