Corporatisation of railways' production units will bring jobs, investments: Goyal
New Delhi: A day after Congress leader Sonia Gandhi raised the issue, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday admitted that the government is moving towards corporatisation of its production units, including Rae Bareli Modern Coach Factory and said that the move will offer jobs, bring investments and ensure growth.
Replying to supplementaries in Lok Sabha during Question Hour, he hit back at Gandhi, saying the party only made announcements and not a single coach was made till 2014.
"The production units that are being corporatised will offer jobs, bring investments, ensure growth, make good modern electric and aluminium coaches. To make all this happen, we will bring the corporates on board while the government stays the majority stakeholder," Goyal said.
The issue was raised by Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Wednesday, a day after Gandhi opposed the government's proposal to corporatise Rae Bareli Modern Coach Factory alleging that it was the "first step" towards their privatisation.
"Congress-run government didn't do corporatisation but privatisation. Congress government set up a coach factory and from 2008 to 2014, no coach was made. We made factory run and 1,422 coaches were made last year by this coach factory, giving employment to a number of people," he said.
Responding to the charges, Goyal said the charge by the Congress leader shows the grand old party's "double standards."
"Former finance minister during UPA regime had said that disinvestment and privatisation are useful economic tools. See this is their double standard. Congress created a private company and transferred the entire GST data to it and even majority stake was held by the private companies. However, under Narendra Modi ji's leadership, we created a government company in September 2018 for this purpose," he said.
Slamming the move to corporatise railways' production units, Gandhi on Tuesday had accused the government of selling the country's assets to private players at a throwaway price.
It was a rare instance when Gandhi raised an issue during the Zero Hour in Lok Sabha.
