The Railway Budget has ignored Kerala's long-pending demands and the State Government will register its protest in the Parliament, the Minister for Public works, Mr M. Vijayakumar, has said.

The Minister, who is holding the additional charge of Railways in the Government, said here on Saturday that the support of the Union Ministers and Members of Parliament from the State, would be mobilised to convey the dissatisfaction to the Centre. He noted that the budget did not contain any mention of the State's long-pending demand for the formation of a peninsular railway zone, which was promised by the Prime Minister at the time of the bifurcation of the Palakkad Division.

Allegations ‘baseless'

The Minister termed as baseless the allegation of the Centre that the State was not co-operating for completing the land acquisition process for rail development, and claimed there was no pending land acquisition work in any part of the State. On the other hand, it was the Railway officials who showed apathy in co-operating with the rail development initiatives in Kerala.

Mr Vijayakumar pointed out that many promises made in the previous year's Railway Budget had remained only on paper.

These included the much-publicised Railway Medical College and a drinking water bottling plant.

Similarly, the promise held out in the previous Budget for conducting surveys for laying new Railway lines as also the extension of the existing services had not found mention in this year's Budget.

New trains

According to the Minister, the announcement for operating new train services in the State could not be seen as a magnanimous gesture from the Centre. It was like giving away permits to new buses without developing the road facilities, he added.

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