Rail universities to remain a pipe dream?

With just few days left to present Railway Budget for this year, the idea of four rail universities announced in the first budget of the current NDA government last July, is all set to be shelved for want of money. After a series of pre-budget meeting, the cash strapped government seems to have realised hard way that each university, brainchild of prime minister Narendra Modi was costing a whooping Rs2000 crore. The government, sources here say, has now moved to set aside Rs100 crore to set up a centre for railway research, instead high-profile universities to churn out graduates and post graduates in courses related to railway jobs.

The idea behind rail universities was that with an employee strength of 13.5 lakhs, Indian railways was forced to spend a huge amount on re-orienting manpower to suit the needs of the national transporter, that included trainings, right from hard core engineering to catering, hospitality and management. It was believed that while graduates coming out of railway universities will have assurance of getting absorbed in to the system, the railway will be spared of attending and spending money on training green horns. In plain words, it meant that even though these universities will be manned by railway ministry to teach courses on management, finance as well as specialised engineering courses, there will be no job guarantee for alumni, who will have to go through the established competitive processes — a subject that has been discussed internally, sources said.

It was also realised that as per government of India conduct of business rules, only human resources development ministry is allowed to operate universities. A special permission has been granted to ministry of external affairs, only in case of international universities that involve bilateral or multilateral agreements with other countries. Two prime example of this exception is Nalanda University and South Asian University, both involving foreign governments. "There is a need for looking at need for changes in law, to set up this university. We should have a full view on the issue before embarking on such a venture," a Railway Board member told dna. At present, Railways has a training institute in Baroda.

Earlier, a Chinese delegation that visited the railway ministry, last year, had proposed to co-fund rail universities. The project was analysed by railway ministry officials, who visited three Chinese universities — Beijing Jiaotong University, Tongji University and Southwest Jiaotong University. China's National Railway Administration is understood to have offered not only co-funding between Chinese railway universities and the Indian Railways, but also joint development of curriculum, design of the university campus and facilities, student and teacher exchange programmes, and offering latest learning technologies to India.

But back home, the railways over past many months was struggling with some teething trouble in the quest of such university, with flurry of exchanges between the Rail Bhavan and human resources development ministry. The EdCIL India, a PSU under the HRD Ministry is reported to have demanded Rs60 lakh from the railways to make a detailed project report, including drafting a bill required for the creation of the university. Within the Rail Bhavan, there was also an intense lobbying also on the choice of location of the university, which was the ultimately left with railway minister Suresh Prabhu, who was supposed take the decision with the help of the Railway Board.