The Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association has urged the Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee to revise the freight tariff classification of food grains and pulses.
The association has urged the Minister to reclassify the two food commodities back to class no. 110 from the existing class no. 130 to avert price escalation. A pre-Budget memorandum pressing various demands was submitted to the Minister by Association President S.P. Jeyapragasam and Executive Committee members P. Subash Chandra Bose and C. Deivarajan at New Delhi on December 11th in the presence of Dindigul MP N.S.V. Chithan.
The association said that if revision was not undertaken in this Budget 2010-11, prices of food grains and pulses would shoot up with consumers suffering a price hike. This demand assumes significance as Tamil Nadu was largely dependent on the northern States such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra to meet its food grains and pulses requirements.
The Association also requested the Railway Minister to introduce a bullet train from Kanyakumari to Chennai via Madurai besides a train shadowing Pandiyan Express.
The Association also demanded a direct night express train and also a day train to Bangalore besides the extension of the following four trains to Tirunelveli: Howrah to Chennai Express, Hyderabad to Chennai Express, Jodhpur to Chennai Express, and Ahmedabad to Chennai Express, according to a press release
