Northeast finds no mention in rail budget

New Delhi: The lackluster second rail budget presented by the Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu had virtually nothing for the North Eastern region not even promises.
In his budget speech Prabhu said that better connectivity to the North Eastern States is of utmost priority for the Indian Railways but did not announce any new scheme or even new train for the landlocked region.
He took pride from the past saying the Indian Railways have opened the long-awaited BG Lumding-Silchar section in Assam, thus connecting Barak Valley with rest of the country.
He said, Mizoram and Manipur are also set to come on the Broad Gauge map of the country soon with commissioning of the Kathakal-Bhairabi and Arunachal-Jiribam Gauge Conversion projects.
Prabhu’s announcements included India’s first rail auto hub in Chennai, boost to e-catering, creation of dedicated north-south, east-west and east coast freight corridors by 2019 and other such developments.
Since not much was announced for the North Eastern region the North East M.Ps Forum criticized the rail budget for the remote and backward region with much less rail connectivity. Both the Congress M.Ps from the Meghalaya -Wansuk Syiem and Vincent H Pala said that this budget has noting much for the region and nothing for the hill state.