India’s railways need to
improve
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi said that there was no
question of privatising the Indian Railways. The government and the Railways badly need private and foreign
investment in the system. Only then we can have the dedicated rail corridor and
bullet train services in our country.
The Prime Minister has been looking to
Japan and China to provide both technological and financial support to some of
these projects.
The plan to set up
four Railway universities across the country is great. The Railways is
constantly trying to raise more funds and increase earnings from both freight
and passenger fares. For a country to develop, you do need to have the latest
and best technological advancements. Most of such facilities will be used by
the so called "elite"and they will be the people who will carry the
poor and middle class to a higher level by creating and developing successful
organisations.
Ten years back,
nobody would back up the need for creating a back bone of internet for the
remotest village. However, today every farmer uses the net to take advantage of
developments and best practices to cultivate the product as well as selling.
Bullet trains and other faster and expensive trains are a must for India’s
development.
Railways needs to
change. In fact, there is a need for a complete makeover. The passengers
travelling in all classes should be made aware of their rights and privileges.
Safety of passengers and their
belongings appears to be at the bottom of railway priorities. Ministers and Officers of this ilk should
not be allowed to treat the travellers as guinea pigs on which to experiment
their weird ideas like Premium Tatkal Scheme and increasing or decreasing the
period of advance reservation arbitrarily without rhyme or reason.
To have a bullet
train from the public exchequer would be a blunder. No doubt it would earn
revenue in future. But again rich can afford to travel by air. Trains are mode
of transport for the middle class and lower income groups. Upgrading toilets and having an effective
disposal of waste requires not much funds but implementation of technology and
laws. Clean, well maintained rest rooms, platforms, hygienic canteens would
require peanuts compared to cost of a bullet train. Again setting up railway
universities is a very innovative, cost effective and beneficial move.
The Railways badly
need private and foreign investment in the system to render decent services to
13 million passengers that Indian Railways serve every day. Shinkansen,
Japanese first bullet train was unveiled way back in 1964. But in India they
are still far from reach. Bring the technology which ease layman because most
travellers in trains are from middle class, if you give them bullet train in the
cost of general train that would be quite beneficial. The government has to keep eye on middle class man's pocket so that it
could not burden his journey.
It is true that
Railway needs large investment. However, the available investment is mismanaged
and corruption is rampant. Even allotted funds remain unspent for many
projects. If corruption by politicians and officials are eliminated, the railways
can sustain itself. With 1.4 crores passengers and 14 lakh MT of goods daily,
the Railway will make profit with meticulous administration and operation and
with realistic approach to tariff revision.
There is a
tendency in India to decry every move of fare rise by railways. How about the
fares charged by the Reliance Infrastructure for the Mumbai Metro Train
services? Public utilities need not make profit but they definitely require
enough funds to grow. Bullet train tracks are said to cost Rs. 125 crore per km.
The money required is proposed to be funded by FDI. Who will bear the repayment
in foreign exchange? Ordinary railway track costs a mere 15 crore per km. With
doubling and tripling of the tracks (the third track being exclusively for
goods movement) passengers will move fast and the economy will also gain by
faster movement of goods.
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