Laloo: Thwarted

Patna, June 27: At 3.40 pm today, one of the grandiose plans of railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav for Bihar came a cropper as the Delhi-bound Jan Sadharan Express left the city without the special refrigerated wagon meant to carry green vegetables from the state to the national capital.

The only trip that the van has made so far was on June 20 when Laloo Prasad flagged off the consignment amid fanfare arranged with taxpayers’ money.

The railway minister had then announced that the wagon would leave every day. Railway officers later said it would travel twice a week. They again changed track and announced that vegetables would be transported only on Sundays, not realising a “black Sunday” was waiting in the wings.

Railway authorities today learnt that no one was coming forward to book vegetable consignments. “A search for prospective suppliers was launched to somehow make the railway minister’s dream project a success. Not just railway personnel, even police officials were entrusted with the task of finding bookings. But no one came forward. It was as simple as that,” a railway source said.

On its inaugural run, the wagon had carried 8,680 kg of vegetables — mainly chillies and gourds — and even this consignment was well below the van’s capacity of almost double the volume.

A vegetable supplier, who had booked a consignment last week, said: “There were hardly any takers for our goods in Delhi because the wholesale price of the vegetables there was either the same or even lower than ours. We somehow managed to dump our supplies in Delhi at very cheap rates. There is no question of booking any more consignments in the near future.”

Following the railway minister’s orders, two refrigerated vans — each costing several lakhs of rupees — were brought to Patna about a fortnight ago. The plan was that one wagon each would do daily trips of Delhi and Calcutta with green vegetables from Bihar. But the response was so poor that the Calcutta van was never pressed into service.

During the inauguration, railway officials boasted they would get more vans if necessary and promised that the Calcutta wagon would soon begin its journeys. Laloo Prasad said the wagons would carry vegetables from the “holy banks of the Ganges” and that the move would greatly enhance the income of “poor” farmers.

But as things unfolded, it was obvious that middlemen and big suppliers booked the first consignment after procuring the vegetables from “poor” farmers at the usual low prices.