Serious Business: Mamata’s payment for tea in cash-rich railways irks officials

TRINAMOOL Congress leader and railway minister Mamata Banerjee’s actions have made officials in Rail Bhawan awe struck. Railway babus, who get freebies including rail passes to travel around the country, are wondering how they should react to the situation where their minister pays for her cup of tea in the office. In fact, the department of railways is the most profit-making arm of the Central government with a profit of whopping Rs 90,000 cr during the last five years. But officials and employees close to the new minister are worried that they may have to pay everything from their pocket, and days of freebees could be over. What’s if the minister, who has already revoked the rule of giving life-long free first class rail tickets to former railway ministers, asks her employees to pay for everything beginning with tea! The bureaucrats, who went all the way to Kolkata carrying official files for Ms Banerjee to assume office there, now feel that nothing is impossible in Rail Bhawan so long as Didi is well on track. Politicians question Welsh civil servants’ splurge of £5 mn on car hire Forget home minister P Chidambaram receiving a brand new Ford sedan for a moment, the spending of whopping five million pound, or roughly Rs 40 crore by Welsh civil servants in UK for hiring of cars was branded “unacceptable” by the politician who uncovered details of the expenditure. In the politician-bureaucrat showdown, it was pointed out how such a huge amount was spent on car hiring for the last five years when video conference facilities have begun to reduce bureaucrats travel in that part of UK.