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Bihar Rail Budget passed in spite of oppositions
(Feb 11, 2008)
If the plans chalked out for Bihar rail by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav are taken into account, the state would alone take away around 45 per cent of the “New Line” railway projects that is to be included in the forthcoming Rail Budget 2008-09.

According to the sources, about 10 out of the 25 odd new line railway projects that are supposed to be announced on Feb' 26 during the release of Railway Budget 2008-09, would belong to Lalu's home state Bihar. These projects would cost around Rs 4,000 crore.

The new lines that have been decided to come up are Sitamarhi-Jaynagar-Nirmali via Susand, Muzaffarpur-Katra-Orai-Janakpur Road, Gaya to Daltonganj and Darbhanga-Muzaffarpur.

However, all these projects are considered to have a negative rate of return as a result of which it is facing variable oppositions from the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission. But despite such confrontations, Lalu gets these projects passed from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) today.

A fixed rate of at least 14 per cent has been set by Indian Railways to calculate the growth or development of any project. The projects with negative rate of return would imply that the operating losses would heavily rise to a great extent once the project is completed. Keeping in view such facts, Railways now take into consideration only those projects that have a minimum of 14 percent rate of return.