No retrenchment in Indian Railways: Nitish

patna: union railway minister nitish kumar on saturday ruled out retrenchment of railway employees saying ''we do not have surplus employees''. "there is no question of retrenchment in railways... we do not have surplus staff," kumar told reporters after flagging off sampoorna kranti express here. "we have a system of re-training and re-deployment of our employees and we engage the people from one work to another," he said. kumar said the income of railways from passenger fare had increased around 8 per cent by the end of january during the current financial year compared to last financial year. kumar refused to divulge details about the railway budget to be presented by him in parliament on february 26. "i will not like to share information about the budget with journalists before i present the railway budget in parliament," he said when reporters wanted to know as to whether his ministry had any proposal to hike the passenger fare. asked whether his ministry had any proposal to privatise the loss incurrring branch lines in the country, kumar said, the government was contemplating to appoint a consultant to study the feasibility of such branch lines and thereafter a decision on the issue would be taken. on railway ministry''s plan to avoid accidents taking place due to human errors, kumar said, "it is a challenge for us... we are evolving various mechanisms and have launched safety drives to minimise accidents." the railway minister said the anti-collision device invented by the konkan railway had been put on trial and we may be able to introduce the device elsewhere in the country to check collisions. he said his ministry had doubled the quota for jobs for sportsmen in the country.