Some detailed considerations regarding the reasons why our agricultural was not to making any progress were also considered according to the reports. From the discussions, it becomes quite clear that the administrative machinery was not geared to the very big tasks that were ahead in the agricultural sector and even today it has become more and more difficult to find out exactly on whom the responsibility for developing the agricultural sector is to be fixed and who is to be held responsible in case the targets which have been prescribed for the agricultural sector are not fulfilled. At the very outset, Sir, I might submit that I have no hesitation in offering my congratulation to the Railway Minister for the good financial position of our railways, as indicated in his speech on the railway budget for the year 2020-2021. There has also been a fall, as speakers have mentioned before, in railway goods traffic, and in income from passenger traffic. The fall in goods traffic has been attributed by the railway authorities to unfair competition from private operators of transport working on lines parallel to the railways and the passenger traffic decline has been attributed to natural economic conditions prevailing in the country. In regard to the fall in goods traffic, I agree that it is the concern of the railways to ensure that the income should not fall but it should be seen that they do nothing so that the private operators of transport who do a national service would go out of existence. It is true that the private operators have been able to defy competition by the railways but it must have happened because the private operators have given economic and operational advantages which the railways could not give, and I incline to say that if the railway authorities give the same advantages economic as well as operational, I am sure that they will get back all the clients who have gone away from them. Therefore, Sir, the objective of this bill is very important. As I said, it is important not only from the point of view of the welfare of the worker, of his right to leisure, but also from the point of view of the safety of our roads. In view of this, sir, and in view of the fact that it is hardly quite safe.
