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'Thrust on implementation of pending projects'

"I have not prepared the Rail Budget keeping West Bengal assembly elections in mind and not given new trains to the state. All I have done is to implement the pending projects," Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday.

Talking to reporters immediately after presenting her 2001-02 Rail Budget in the Lok Sabha, she said she had prepared the budget keeping the entire country in mind.

"I haven't deprived any state," she stated.

When a reporter asked pointedly how much the minister had allocated to her home state which would soon face assembly polls, Banerjee said: "You are only asking about how many trains I have given to West Bengal. Does the Howrah-Bangalore Express cover only West Bengal?"

She said the Railways had over Rs 600 billion worth of pending projects and her thrust in the budget this time round was to implement them.

Reacting to repeated interruptions by Opposition and some NDA partners in the Lok Sabha during the budget presentation, she said: "It is an absolutely political campaign. I cannot satisfy all the 800-odd MPs."

Banerjee said she had spoken to prominent political leaders from different states and taken into consideration their viewpoints before finalising the budget.

She said the Railway Ministry, through efficient working and internal resource mobilisation, had absorbed the additional burden of Rs 4.75 billion, which had fallen on the railways due to increase in diesel prices twice during the year.

PTI

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