Legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar’s first involvement as a Rajya Sabha member came more than three years after his nomination with the master blaster asking his first question in Parliament on Friday, the Economic Times reported.
Tendulkar was made a member of the Parliament Committee on Information Technology on September 1, 2015.
His first direct involvement in parliamentary matters came through a written question to the Ministry of Railways, to which he also received a written answer from the Minister of State for Railways, Manoj Sinha.
“Will the Minister of Railways be pleased to state the rationale behind creating a new zone for Kolkata Metro and whether it can be replicated in other cities such as Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi that also have similar suburban rail services; the criteria that a suburban railway system must fulfil to enable it to be notified as a separate zone; and whether the above three cities fulfil that criteria and are eligible for being notified as separate zones?” was Tendulkar’s query.
The Railways Ministry replied that the Kolkata metro service is a one-of-a-kind stand-alone system on Indian Railways (IR), which operates only Metro services.
{{/usCountry}}The Railways Ministry replied that the Kolkata metro service is a one-of-a-kind stand-alone system on Indian Railways (IR), which operates only Metro services.
{{/usCountry}}“After taking this into consideration along with operational, administrative and other factors, the zonal railway status was granted to Metro Railway, Kolkata to help this organization in its operations and in further expansion. In the Indian Railway system operational in other cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, the suburban railway traffic is run along with the mainline traffic”, the reply said.
Another question was also raised by him on the issue of changes in provisions for issuing of driving licenses, to which the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is scheduled to reply on Monday.