Sachin Tendulkar gets off the mark in Parliament, asks first question after 3 years!

The legend has been criticised on numerous occasions in the past for his poor attendance in the Parliament.

New Delhi: Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar on Monday broke his silence in the Parliament, as he asked a question regarding the Mumbai Metro from the Ministry of Railways.

Tendulkar, who was made a Rajya Sabha member on June 3, 2012, in a written question asked, "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?."

In reply, the Railways ministry replied in the negative to the query saying that the Mumbai metro being notified as a 'separate zone.'

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.

“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.

The batting maestro, who has hit most number of centuries in ODIs (49) and Tests (51), has been criticised on numerous occasions in the past for his poor attendance in the Parliament.

In 2012, he was offered one of the 12 seats in Rajya Sabha that are reserved for those who have distinguished themselves in various fields such as the arts, sciences or social services.