Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s fifth budget is a carefully crafted mix ofpopulism and pragmatism. Many might blame Lalu Pradad for being responsible forleading his home state Bihar downhill in most growth parameters, but in hisavatar as the railway minister he has come to be seen as someone who manages todeliver better and better services without raising the passenger fares. It is adifferent matter that if one looks at service delivery, the last few years haveseen no improvement in punctuality or cleanliness of trains or stations. Norhave passengers amenities improved in anyway, despite announcements andassurances to the contrary.
Nonetheless, that hasn't stopped Prasad from playing to the galleries in his2008-09 budget, which could be his last before elections next year. So you havea 2-7 per cent reduction in passenger fares across all classes alongside many anannouncement of welfare and employment generation schemes.
The passenger fare reduction mantra is no magic but careful planning anddesigning by in-house talent, point out railway ministry officials. Over thelast two years, Indian Railways, which operates over 14,000 trains daily, hasstarted operating not only longer trains on popular routes but also has beengradually replacing the passenger coaches with new stainless steel ones withincreased seating and sleeper berth capacity to offer cheaper fare whether forordinary class or air-conditioned coaches.
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Similarly, from improving the turnaround time of freight wagons to increasingpayload and offering incentives during lean periods, the railways has been ableto steadily increase its share in freight handling over the last four years. Theresult is an incremental loading of 233 MT and Rs 14000 cr of freight earningsduring 2007-08 fiscal.
Addressing concerns on overloading of wagons and damaging the over agedtracks in many areas, the railway workshops have designed new lighter butsturdier wagons made of stainless steel.
After four years of being at the helm of affairs, the railway minister isable to boast of a Rs.25,000 crore cash surplus (over Rs. 67,000 crore in fouryears, it's a different matter though if it is a result of deft sleight of handand window-dressing)and announce ambitious plans of augmenting infrastructure in some of the highcapacity corridors covering an estimated 20,000 km network which carry coal andiron ore. The project to be implemented over seven years will see an investmentof Rs. 750 billion investment.
With an Annual Plan of Rs.37,500 crore, the largest ever plan so far, the over63,000 route kilometer network is expected to see major investments forimproving and expanding traffic facility and network, safety and beefing upproduction of rolling stocks.
Better port connectivity, plans to replace old wagons and coaches with stainlesssteal custom built ones, better signaling and IT enabled facilities are but afew of the ambitions proposals announced. For the manufacturing sectorparticularly steel, plans to acquire 20,000 stainless steel wagons in 2008-09alone should be a major booster. Increase in partnership with private sector inmany of the schemes including logistics parks and maintaining stations andwagons are also expected to prove beneficial for both public and private sectorpartners..
The optimism raised by the railway budget may be laudable, but how well andtimely these infrastructure plans will be implemented remains to be seen as overthe last few years augmentation and replacement of worn out or aging network hasseen little progress. What is worrisome is that there has been a huge backlog ofprojects that has seen little progress due to lack of funds and focus.
The railway board officials claim that Rs. 39,215 cr has been invested in railinfrastructure during the nine month period from April-December 2007, but thatis not sufficient, claim experts.
