The rail budget ’07 by Lalu Prasad received kudos from all and sundry. It has been made out be a 'heroic fete' as opposed to Chidambaram’s 'cowardice/ villainous fete' (budget ‘07). But a few days back I happened to watch an IBN-7 story that made me think otherwise and question the very credibility of Lalu’s budget. A brief discussion below will certainly be an eye-opener...
The 20,000 crore surplus of the railways has taken the country by awe and a promise to increase it further is fascinating. But the question is where will the surplus come from? The front door management techniques are- using the excess capacity in freight loads, reducing wagon and bogie turn around time, mid term hikes through rationalisation of fares and efficient use of existing track capacity. Primarily on the passenger business side there has been no increase in fares- but Lalu has almost cunningly adopted a few back door techniques like upgrading of 283 trains as ‘super fast’ calling for an additional burden of Rs. 20 as surcharge from every passenger- and in view of the dismal time keeping by these trains the real intentions behind it is questionable. The meals served by the pantry car, in spite of their renowned poor quality, are going to cost more (veg- Rs. 30 & non-veg- Rs. 35) but we are already been forced to shell much more than that (albeit illegally) and any further increase is only going to burden the ‘Aam Admi’ heavily. A laudable initiative of providing lower berths on a priority basis to senior citizens and women above 45 yrs. is not without its own share of blames as in reality even for this humanitarian welfare measure the beneficiaries are being forced to spend extra...
I don’t intend to advocate that making profits is wrong or that user charges are always bad. But what we should protest against is the ‘dhokha’ that has been done to our country men and a sheer lack of transparency in the entire process. While the positive features were highlighted with much fan-fare the facts regarding the additional charges imposed were relatively concealed. It proves that the Lalu’s budget is nothing but populist in nature and can be very well termed as a ‘back door entry into surplus’...
It’s high time that the largest public mode of transport stands up tall as a model for others to emulate and dwell with issues of utmost urgency- such as the high rate of rail accidents, need for greater transparency, lack of effective accountability, and dismal condition of in-train services. All this and more can in real usher the Indian Railways into a truly ‘world class’ service and in the long run make every Indian proud, happy and satisfied...
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3 comments:
hi deep..while you have given quite a good reasons dat rail budget is flowery but it wud b wrong 2 criticise it fully..as far as surplus is concerned ur explanation is not holistic.Jst wid d rise in prices of 2-3items v cant enjoy a surplus of 20000 but its also concerned wid lalu's sharp mind(if i cud use d same).. not raising d fares since last 2 budgets plus reduction in same dis year cant b a backdoor tactic..it has 2 do wid d simultaneous increase in volumes also-d main strategy adopted by him 2 bring our railways in surplus wid a history of 60 yrs..while i fully agree dat not much has been done security side..
u r quite right but i would like to givemy views on it.
first of all lalu`s rail budget show the increasing surplus rate even after complex $ dubious problems may be smhow u r right that its just the tactics which show high growth initially and just fill their pockets but people didn`t understand their politics and r satisfied.so 1st peple must take it into consideration afterthat smthing will be done.
It is indeed very interesting to read what, in your opinion is the Back door entry to the serplus. All i would like to say is that instead of blaming it all to Lalu and the system, which is something we indians are very good at, we should introspect and reconsider our very oun duties with respect to the railway system. It is indeer correct when you say that lalu's budget has hidden quite a lot as far as charges are concerned but one must not take away the credit and must accept and laud his affort which has brought the Indin Railways to a totally new high.
We must also consider one thing that in any situation specially in Indian Politics where according to me, an acute shortage of selfless leaders haunt the parliament,this railway budget comes as a relief, by this i do not intend to back the budget entirely but yes it cannot be denied that it has been able to do the needful in the present situation.
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