After a thumping victory in recent general elections, perhaps it was time for Railway

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Minister Mamta Banerjee to thank her supporters who helped rout left parties from West Bengal.

In her first rail budget after taking charge barely a month back, Banerjee attempted at outdoing her predecessor, Lalu Yadav by announcing a slew of measures for ‘Aam Aadmi’.

Although she did not touch fares, Banerjee did her bit by either announcing new projects or by tweaking the existing ones to appease most sections, including Trinamool’s strong vote-bank, the minority community. Even her fellow MPs from both houses got something to talk about.

In an effort to strike the right chord with the youth that now constitutes nearly two-thirds of country’s population, Banerjee announced special ‘Yuva Trains’ and expanded the scope of student concessions. Yuva Trains would be introduced between major cities to ensure that youth from low-income groups can travel at low rates between these cities.

“The new low-priced fast train service would be started to connect youth in rural hinterlands to major metros or cities. The train(s) would provide air-conditioned seating and would run between distances ranging from 1,000 km to 2,500 km. The fare will be Rs 299 for distances up to 1,500 km and Rs 399 for distances up to 2,500 km,” Banerjee said.

Banerjee became the first railway minister to have included madrasas, centers of learning for Muslims, in the ambit of concessions being extended to other educational institutions. The free monthly season tickets for second-class travel between school and home for girl students up to graduation and for boys up to 12th standard will be extended to those attending madrasa, high madrasa and senior Madrasa. Besides, the minister also extended a scheme that gives 60 per cent concession on monthly season tickets to students attending school up to class 12th, madrasa, high madrasa and senior madrasa for travel in Kolkata Metro rail.

She also tried to appease women by announcing a new scheme for them on the lines of Mumbai local trains. Under the new scheme, ‘Only Ladies’ EMU train services would be started in Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

Another scheme ‘Izzat’ has been announced to provide monthly travel passes for unorganised sector workers at flat rate of Rs 25 for travel up to 100 kms. Those with monthly income of Rs 1,500 or less would become beneficiaries of the scheme.

Journalists also got something to cheer about. Mamta Banerjee announced a new scheme of concessions to be given to accredited press correspondents.

It is now proposed to issue photo identification cum credit cards to journalists for availing concessions while traveling on professional assignments. On production of proposed card, the press correspondents would be able to get reservation done from the designated counters. Moreover, railway concession for journalists have been increased from 30 per cent to 50 per cent and spouse of journalists would also be eligible for 50 per cent concession once a year.

To do her bit for the farming community, Banerjee proposed to introduce special trains to carry perishable products like fruits and vegetables from identified production clusters to consumer centres.

"Railways will encourage creation of facilities of setting up cold storage and temperature controlled perishable cargo centres and its transportation through public private partnership mode,” Banerjee said.

Interestingly, out of 57 new trains announced by Mamta Banerjee, at least 31 will touch some station or other in West Bengal, her home state. As if to buy peace with her predecessor, at least 21 of these trains would also touch stations across Bihar.

Mamta Banerjee did not leave out her colleagues in Parliament while announcing dole-outs. She invited each member from both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to suggest one location each in their respective constituencies whereby new passenger rReservation system (PRS) centres may be established.