Interim rail budget: A farcical exercise in face-saving

The ‘vote-on-account’ statement, a precursor to the full-fledged Railway Budget for next fiscal, presented to Parliament on February 12 by the Union Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge was a toast to the performance of this arterial mode of transport. However, it failed to reflect the Railways’ financial woes. This is understandable as UPA-2 has no mandate to roll out important initiatives or announce a raft of freebies or reforms, given the fact that the nation is to elect a new government in less than three months.

But what strikes one going through the minister’s speech, most of which was lost in the din when members agitating on the Telangana issue disrupted House proceedings, was Kharge’s proposal to lay “further emphasis on improving its market share through a mix of strategies”. The ostentatious mix entails, among others, “improved use of assets, including wagon turnaround by ensuring improved operation and maintenance practices to enhance asset availability, intensive monitoring in the condition of freight terminals through result-oriented investments, and laying emphasis on completion of various ongoing line capacity works on critical sections”. Merely stressing on strategies without ensuring the wherewithal to buttress the proposals does not make much sense.

A cursory look at the statement reveals that the rolling stock (the lifeline of the system of the premier transport body with the second largest network in the world under a single management plying around 11,000 trains every day across the country) and its maintenance found no mention. What is worse, the provision for Depreciation Reserve Fund (DRF) purported to take care of the cost of rolling stocks’ maintenance and repair, had come down from the budgeted Rs7,500 crore to Rs6,500 crore for the current fiscal. The proposed outlay for the next fiscal on this account is budgeted at Rs6,850 crore, much lower than what was budgeted for the current fiscal but a notch higher than the revised figures! Similar is the slash in the provision to Development Fund which saw the budgeted one of Rs3,550 crore revised to Rs2,675 crore for the current fiscal with the provision for the next year being budgeted at Rs3,550 crore, the same as this year!

In UPA’s two tenures, the Railways saw five ministers with only Lalu Prasad having held the portfolio for the full-term in UPA I with the rest of the four occupants lasting from two years to an average of about seven months each for the four ministers who followed! No wonder ad hocism was rampant and the system was used to farm out favours with scant regard to the finances that were dissipated in gross mismanagement. Ironically, there was no dearth of expert committees set up in the last decade to fix the faults and put the rails on the track but as is wont, all these reports ranging from vision document, safety, corporate plan to modernisation were left to gather dust!

Just two days prior to the interim rail budget the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) in a compliance audit report on Railways rapped the management for their neglect of the locomotives that impart the crucial motive power for both passenger and train services. A test audit on the maintenance of locomotives from 2009 to 2012 showed that 90 per cent of the loco sheds carried excess holdings of locomotives. In many instances, locomotives are not getting repaired and periodically overhauled which create “operational problems and are a safety risk”. Locomotives were found detained before and after periodic overhaul in the exchange yards. The total loss of potential earning capacity and the extra expenditure incurred was estimated as Rs733 crore and Rs234 crore respectively, the audit brought out. Considering the lack of seriousness on keeping their rolling stocks fit and proper to service both passenger and freight, it is time the government displayed resoluteness in revamping the system root and branch to ensure the safety and security of rail users.

The author is a freelance journalist based in Delhi