Lalu Yadav arrives in Parliament to present Railway Budget 2009-10
New Delhi, Feb 13 : Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has arrived in Parliament to present his sixth Railway Budget. As he entered its portals, he waved the red leather case in which he was carrying his proposals.
Before arriving at Parliament, Lalu told media persons that he would announce further sops for train passengers.
Yadav, however, refused to reveal details, but thanked his United Progressive Alliance (UPA) colleagues, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for extending full cooperation in carrying out his policies for public welfare.
The railways has been profiting year on year since Yadav took charge of the railway ministry in 2004, but opposition leaders like Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar continue to question why those profits haven''t reached the common man.
The Indian Railways is the second largest train network in the world under a single apex management, running more than 11,000 passenger trains every day.
This is apart from the freight and container services, better known as goods trains.
The Railway Budget last year had reduced fares across-the-board apart from focussing on hygiene, new routes, punctuality, better coaches and mobile ticketing.
This is the sixth Railways Budget that Yadav will be presenting and the last one for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government before the April-May general elections. (ANI)