Odisha BJD MP Jay Panda finds rail budget ‘shocking, illogical’

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Jul 8, 2014 at 7:57 PM

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
New Delhi, July 8:

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Unlike his party chief Naveen Patnaik who chose to take a soft line, Odisha’s Biju Janata Dal MP and party’s spokesperson Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda was harshly critical of the rail budget today.

Terming the rail budget as “quite shocking” and “illogical” , he said no emphasis was given on the development of the areas that generated huge amount of revenue from freight services.

“The budget is illogical as far as Odisha is concerned. The logic has to be explained. The government says priority would be given to those areas which have been neglected.It gets Rs 14,000 crore from freight services from Odisha and yet large parts of the state do not have rail connectivity,” said Jay Panda while talking to a news magazine here.

“The budget is not in harmony with what the government had earlier said about neglected regions being given more focus,” he added.