* Being one of the most stubborn coalition partner in the history of Indian coalition politics, Mamata resorted to extreme armtwisting to grab the Railway Ministry with an eye to nurture her political vote bank. Her performance as RM truly reflected her motto.
* With ABA Gani Khan chaodhury as her idol, who was the probably the first RM to politicize IR and interfere in IR decision making to fulfil his interests (especially Kolkata Metro). Mamata took political interference in IR to highest level.
One of the most Financially immature RM ever,...
more... she inflected maximum financial bleeding to IR through:
(1) Izzat passes- for travelling between destinations 100kms apart for one month after paying only Rs. 25!. It is actually a be-izzati for full fare paying passengers.
(2) Not increasing passenger fares (esp. of non ac classes) which were stagnant for 5 years, (courtesy Lalu) inspite of the fact that fare revision was long overdue and the financial condition of IR was worsening due to constant fares and burgeoning concessions.
(3) She stalled/slowed down the capacity augmentation projects of trunk routes and dedicated a huge chunk of funds to complete its pet WB projects like Tamluk-Digha and others, most of which where financially not sound for IR.
(4) She made Kolkata Metro a 17th zone and started huge Kolkata Metro Expansion projects to the tune of 20,000 crores and allocated maximum IR funds for Kolkata Metro Expansion which was financially very bad for IR. Kolkata metro is a loss of a few thousand crore Rs per year to IR.
(5) Amost 40%-50% of the new trains were started from her home state. A large number of short distance trains (mostly intra-state) with very few coaches were launched by her which gave very less revenue and maximum losses to IR. Long distance were good but rest were mostly failures.
(6) IR had earlier mulled introducing non stop SF trains between major metro cities but didi not introduce them for want of proper timing slots. Mamata introduced such trains under the brand Duronto. Some Durontos were a successful especially ones where both destinations were metro cities. AC Durontos from non Metro cities were not successful even with only 10 pax coaches. JP,INDB, Ernakulam etc Durontos should have been with SL coaches also. Her other brands Yuva, ACDD were mostly failures.
(7) During her regime IR had eaten up all the depreciation funds primarily meant for safety and earmarked for renewal of aging assets. She also deferred payment of dividends. She was one of the most financially irresponsible RM and a menace for the Finance minister.
(8) She announced a large number of small factories to manufacture railway component Kolkata/WB region instead having them near to the manufacturing factories for political mileage and to make her image as proWB development minister and reaped political benefits too in state elections!
(9) She announced plethora of unwanted and recurring expenditures for IR like opening of many polytechnics, medical colleges, hospitals etc (a large chunk in her home state) for political gains instead of augmentation/renewal of the saturated and ageing rail network.
(10) She unceremoniously sacked an able RM Dinesh Trivedi as TMC chief and CM WB, when he announced fare rise in all classes esp. non ac classes which were stagnant for almost a decade. She is in fact mainly responsible for institutionalizing norms, where non ac fare rise has become a taboo and a big malaise for IR! Unfortunate Prabhu is reaping the fruits of flexifare, for the seeds sown & nurtured as plant by Laloo, which were further nurtured as strong trees by Mamata.
(11) She did not allow a MBA and able RM Dinesh Trivedi to function at all and replaced him with a useless rubber stamp. This act should fetch negative marks for Mamata. Her periods (2 short periods) were one of the worst for survival of IR.
