I voluntarily gave up Rail Budget, says Prabhu

New Delhi, April 26: Railways minister Suresh Prabhu on Wednesday said he himself had volunteered for clubbing of railways budget with the General Budget, and it was “not a take over” by the finance ministry.

Ending a nearly centuryold practice of having a separate budget for Railways, the government from the current fiscal merged it with the General Budget, which was presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley on February 1. Mr Prabhu was talking about the vision for making the public transport more efficient and profitable. He said there was only one source of funds for the railways, and that was the Budget. “Arun Jaitley will always say I have so many priorities and rightly so. If I were the finance minister, I will say the same thing,” he said. To a question on merger of the Railway Budget with the Union Budget, the minister quipped: “I voluntarily gave it up. It was not a take over. It was a voluntary merger”.