Sonia Gandhi assails BJP led NDA govt for privatising railway projects

Speaking at the Zero hour Sonia Gandhi while expressing her immense regret over the govt’s arbitrary privatisation of six railway coach factories in the country which includes Rai Bareilly’s profit oriented rly coach factory as well Sonia Gandhi in her hard hitting speech in Hindi said that in the  the initial phase under this govt scheme of privatisation,  the Rai Bareilly Modern Coach factory has been included amongst five other units.

She added amidst thumping of the desks from opposition benches : Those who do not know the meaning of privatisation or ( company karan),  I would like to say that this is an arbitrary  practice to sell the govt assets into the hands of select few crony capitalists for their benefits.

This is the first process to sell the valuable govt assets ( amulya dharohar) to the select few capitalists at the rates of peanuts.

Expressing her apprehensions about thousands of employees going unemployed by this new move Sonia Gandhi emphatically said that due to this arbitrary sale of govt properties/ assests thousands and thousands of people will become unemployed and their families will come on the brink of disaster . She asked the policy makers : I want to question : why has the govt chosen the Modern Bareilly Coach factory for this arbitrary experiment which has been an extremely successful profit oriented project of the govt.

She added : This project was started by Dr. Manmohan Singh under the make in India vision to enhance domestic production which is also the vision of the current PM.

Today this factory’s production is tremendous even more than it stipulated target/ capacity. This is the very modern factory of the Indian Railways and also famous to producing railway coaches of hi tech qualities at cheaper rates rendering huge profir to the government.

This is the biggest unit of railway coach production in which the previous government have invested a massive amount. She appreciated the workers contribution and said : I congratulate the 2000 workers and staff of this coach factory for their valuable contribution in this factory’ s production but regret to say that now the futire of these employees and their poor families is in extreme jeopardy and it is beyond anybody’s understanding as to why the government is desperate to privatise this/ n other public sector industrial units.

She regretted saying : I don’t know why has this government stopped the age old tradition of presenting the separate railway budget in the parliament but should we not expect from  the government to get this arbitray  decision  investigated by the joint parliamentary committee and has the government enough courage and wisdom to do so.

Sonia said : The government has kept this arbitrary privatisation decision a deep rooted secret by not even informing or taking the factory’s  labour unions and the workers into confidence before arriving at the conclusion of privatisation on, whose sweat and hard labour these factories run and give profits to the government.

She said : I want to remind the government of the day that the government undertakings and industrial production units are meant for excessive production for the nation’s progress and subsequent employment to the poor not to privatise them to benefit a select few crony capitalists.

Praising the former PM Jawahar lal Nehru Sonia Gandhi said:  Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru had termed the public sector undertakings as the temples of modern India but today  unfortunately these temples of modern India are being crushed, the mazdoors are not being paid their salaries despite earning huge profits by these public sector industries/ undertakings and a few selected capitalists are being benefited at the cost of these PSUs.

Sonia said : Everybody know what is the fate of HAL, BSNL and MTNL. concluding her Zero hour speech in Lok Sabha Sonia Gandhi said :   I request the government not to play with the fate of thousands of employees of the public sector industries like Modern Coach Factory of Rai Bareilly and other five profit making public sector industries of Railways and protect the fundamental rights of thousands of hard working dedicated employees of these govt run industries and their families by withdrawing theis arbitrary decision forthwith.