BUDGET\\ The Railway Budget 2012 presented by Former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi hiked passenger fares for the first time in 10 years. Interestingly, before the masses could react to the hike, key coalition ally Trinamool Congress (TMC) decided to pull the chain and bring the Manmohan Singh’s budget express to a halt. As soon as Trivedi completed his speech, Trinamool Congress raised the red flag—both to the hike and the minister. In the third week of March, the hike in rail passenger fares for second-class suburban and non-suburban, sleeper, AC chair car and AC three-tier was rolled back, with the new Railway Minister Mukul Roy dubbing the hikes as a “huge drain” on the masses. He, however, did not touch the increase of 15 Paise per kilometre and 30 Paise per kilometre, respectively, in passenger fares in AC two-tier and AC-I announced by his predecessor Trivedi. TMC leader Mukul Roy also scrapped Trivedi’s proposal to expand the Railway Board and put on hold the proposal of setting up a committee to examine if there should be an independent tariff regulatory authority.