Commonwealth Express, an exhibition train, on the themes of sports and Information Technology (IT), was flagged off from the Safdarjung railway station, New Delhi yesterday. The train consists of 11 coaches out of which five coaches have been allocated to Railway Sports Promotion Board to showcase the history of commonwealth games and 6 coaches to showcase history of IT in India. The train will be travelling through 49 cities and towns across the country covering 23 States and two Union Territories.

Delhi Chief Minister is of the opinion that the people across India after visiting the exhibition train will be inspired to see the commonwealth games and will be attracted to attend the event in Delhi. But is such an extravagant advertising expenditure warranted at all?  Or is it another case whereby babus / politicians within Ministry of Railways and Department of Information Technology  wanted to en-cash the great corruption opportunity called the commonwealth games.

The differences in the ministries were evident with the ministry of railways press release mentioning that Mamata Banerjee flagged off the commonwealth express and Department of IT mentioning that Sachin Pilot and Mamta Banarjee flagged off the train. Anyways there was no participation from the ministry of sports or the commonwealth games secretariat on the launch function.

The train was meant for the common man but only netas were allowed entry into the train at the launch function. The train went to its journey onwards Amritsar the movement netas flagged the train off. The media and the common man for whom the exhibition train was conceptualized were left high and dry. If this was the treatment that  the common man was subjected to in the national capital before the huge media, then what will happen to him in smaller town is questionable. Therefore the question,

Is the commonwealth express meant for common man ?