NEW DELHI: On a day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for redevelopment of 508 railway stations across the country, Congress MP Randeep Singh Surjewala accused the central government of making train journey risky and unsafe.
In a tweet in Hindi on Sunday, Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP said, “Instead of repeatedly showing the events of ‘green flag’ just to paint a ‘false image, Modi ji should also do something to make the journey of the railway safe and reliable.”
He noted that the Indian Railways has been the "lifeline" of the country. “But the Modi government has made the railway journey extremely risky in the last nine years,” he added.
Surjewala said according to the information given to Parliament by railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in December 2022, a total of 3.12 lakh posts are vacant in the railways.
He said, “Due to the huge shortage of personnel directly related to security and train operations, train travel is at the mercy of God. The wounds of the horrific train accident that took place in Balasore, Odisha on June 2 are not even healed yet.”
The Congress leader alleged that the whole country is seeing the brunt of the “continuous neglect” of the maintenance needs of the railway tracks and signal system. By abolishing the concession on train tickets in one stroke, the Modi government has made the journey of the elderly too difficult, he said.
“Despite neglecting railways and picking the pockets of people, the BJP has burdened the railways with a debt of Rs 8000 crore in the last four years alone. The meaning is clear – the work of ‘derailing’ the railways has been done continuously in the BJP government,” he said.
PM Modi laid the foundation through video-conferencing for the redevelopment of 508 'Amrit Bharat Stations' spread across several states at an estimated cost of around Rs 25,000 crore.
