Derailing the rail

After so many years, we saw a real visionary and pragmatic rail minister, who never intended to use the railway as a vehicle for corridors of power, this man, Dinesh trivedi, did his MBA from Texas, and make no mistake, he got it financed from a loan of rs 20000 long back in 70s,. He was more than perfect for the job, as he also worked with detex as a logistic expert. But these things, i am sure, were never in mind, when he was appointed for the job by mamta banerjee, and was never in mind when he is about to be sacked. He was simply appointed because somebody had to be there, and that too from the TMC, mamta banerjee always road on railway to get her votes, and after becoming chief minister, she never wanted to lose this beautiful wagon of popularity, so it was given to mr.trivedi.

Nobody will deny from the fact that railway is in dire need of reform, take the safety issue, although at 0.55 accident per million km, it is low, but huge population make the number of affected people quite large, the modernisation is hanging from time immemorial, the platforms are one of the filthiest place you go around, the wagons are hopeless, only one third of lines are electrified, border railway is simply inadequate, on top of that in every budget you have more trains on same track. For all these things you need money.

The central issue over which, the minister is likely to resign is the passenger fare, which has been increased marginally, that too keeping in mind class differences, is a non issue to my mind. The passenger fares are unrealistically low, and probably one of the lowest in the world. Take the example of Delhi metro, the fare I bet is , if not the highest, is competitive to other modes of transport like bus. All kind of people ride on it, rich and  poor, office goer and student, and they hardly ever complain about it, the gist is that today people are more concerned about the amenities the get than the fare, railway has not increased its fare from last eight years, taking the average inflation and cost of other inputs that have gone up average 4 to 5% in these eight years, the fare must have gone up by 10% by now, to say the least, even the cost of a cup of tea has gone up from rs 2 to rs 4 in these eight years, the simple point is that bottom income has  increased, so there was no rational behind holding the prices so low for so long. In this context this man proposed one of the finest railway budget in recent years, proposing separate authority for stations, for fare determination etc.

There is another angle of this problem as well, although railway has never been seen in the context of competition with the other modes of transport but one of the biggest reasons behind low and ridiculous development of other modes of transportation is that of low fare charged by railways and throwing other modes of transportation simply out of  competition, this further has aggravated the problem of public transport.

If people pay little higher, they seek little higher services and thus an informal pressure to reform the services on the system builds up and that, to my mind is the precursor of real reform.

They way this Nobel attempt was undertaken cornering the political expediency is really appreciable, but the way it is about to be sabotaged just show the sheer political opportunism and it is without doubt a real danger for the bigger agenda of reform.