• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Even while conceding the wish-list...Mamata prods the `beast of burden'

Limiting the freight hike to five per cent for certain commodities may make the target of 50 per cent market share just that bit more difficult for Ms. Mamata Banerjee to achieve, but the new freight policy will surely make a dent. The Minister has also come up with several other measures, including some determined arm-twisting of the Cabinet, to hike the budgetary support to the Railways. The plans to garner revenues from non-traditional sources, including the commercial utilisation of land and airspac e, are innovative, says R. C. Acharya.

ANOTHER Rail Budget has been presented, again with the usual platitudes of catering to the aspirations of the common man and striving to carry the awesome burden of being the nation's lifeline. It has the mandatory long list of new lines, track-doubling projects, gauge conversions, new trains, and concessions to an assortment of needy people, most of it in response to the ever-increasing `wish list' of the people's representatives, who seem to equate the Railways to Kamadhenu, the eternal `milch cow'.

Of late, though, this `milch cow' has been gradually transformed into a `beast of burden', what with the huge backlog of hundreds of incomplete projects. The now famous White Paper, tabled by the former Railway Minister, Mr. Nitish Kumar, on July 28, 199 8 had reported that new line projects totalling a whopping Rs. 20,000 crores, including the cost escalations, could be completed only in 2022, and that too, if an unbelievable annual outlay of Rs. 2,000 crores was made available!

Soon after taking charge at Rail Bhavan, the Railway Minister, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, was dismayed to find a huge backlog of hundreds of multi-crore projects yet to be completed. Echoing the words of Tagore, Ms. Mamata Banerjee stated: ``I start on my jour ney with empty hands and expectant heart'' in order to overcome these financial reverses.'' Averse to market borrowings through IRFC (Indian Railway Finance Corporation) bonds, which is not cost-effective, she has some up with several innovative measures , including some determined arm-twisting of the Cabinet to hike the budgetary support to 40 per cent against last year's 26 per cent, which was itself the highest since 1993-94.

However, sanctioning a `survey' has been the easy way out for successive Railway Ministers, who often find themselves cornered by aggressive MPs and MLAs urgently needing handouts to impress their constituents back home. Such surveys, averaging about 20 each year, shot up to 40 in 1995-96, 63 in 1997-98, 68 in 1997-98 and 76 in 1998-99. Fortunately, Mr. Nitish Kumar was able to stand his ground, though even he had to concede 24 surveys for new lines and six for gauge conversion, while Ms. Mamata Banerje e has been able to get away with 25 for new lines and just one for gauge conversion.

Of the long list of projects included in various Railway Budgets without requisite prior clearance, 41 are new lines, and 92 are gauge conversions which are being gradually cleared by the Planning Commission. Hence, while announcing seven new line projec ts, Ms. Mamata Banerjee clarified that their inclusion depended entirely on their getting appropriate clearances from the Planning Commission.

A host of concessions are announced each year and, a few months ago, Ms. Mamata Banerjee had come up with proposal for a Rs. 15 monthly season ticket for vendors below the poverty line who had so far been mostly travelling without ticket and who could no w contribute to the Railways' kitty. The critics' claim of a likely multi-crore loss to passenger earnings is only notional, as a white collar worker would seldom bother to seek an MLA's or MP's certificate to get this concession, especially as the prese nt cost of season ticket is quite low.

Ms. Mamata Banerjee now plans to garner revenues from non-traditional sources _ the first-ever such attempt by any Railway Minister. Constituting a task force with representatives of the Railways and industry, she proposes to undertake the commercial uti lisation of land and airspace, talked about for more than a decade now. For this purpose, a separate Directorate was created under the Railway Board a few years ago.

Now, Ms. Mamata Banerjee has pulled out all stops by going ahead and getting her Ministry to sign up an MoU with HUDCO (Housing and Urban Development Corporation), which has the expertise in this area, giving a major fillip to the project with active inp uts from in-house construction bodies such as RITES and IRCON, which will pitch in to develop the sites at the metros. Certain sections, such as Delhi-Panipat, Kanpur-Lucknow, Bangalore-Mysore, Sealdah-Kalyani, Chandigarh-Ludhiana, Vadodara-Ahmedabad, an d Visakhapatnam-Rajahmundry will also be developed.

Cashing on the right-of-way for about 62,000 route km connecting more than 7,000 stations, the Railway Minister proposes to build a nation-wide broad-band telecom and multimedia network by laying optic fibre cables. Apart from modernising its own telecom infrastructure, it would provide a parallel nationwide telecom channel for various telecom operators and Internet service providers, simultaneously earning valuable income for the cash-strapped Railways.

New trains are something no Railway Minister can avoid, though they invariably end up choking the already overcrowded tracks. However Ms. Mamata Banerjee's list of 24 new trains, the increase in frequency of five and the extension of 11 trains is insigni ficant, compared to the bonanza in 1996-97 of 82 new trains, increase in frequency of 22 and extension of 62!

Limiting the freight hike to less than 5 per cent for coal, steel, cement, limestone and other bulk commodities may still not reach the ambitious target of increasing the Railways' market share from 40 per cent to 50 per cent in the first decade of this millennium, though the multi-pronged new freight policy should certainly make a dent. While this year's target of 450 million tonnes originating traffic may be achieved, a lot will depend on how the new freight policy takes off.

This involves an innovative approach, such as offering volume discounts and warehousing facilities at major terminals. The Ro-Ro (Roll-Off-Roll-On) system has already proved popular on the Konkan Railway for the movement of fully-loaded trucks between Mu mbai and Goa. The Freight Operations Information System (FOIS) is expected to provide real-time information to customers in booking movement and delivery through customer service cells. High-speed goods trains are expected to follow super-fast express tr ains to ensure fast and safe transit of select, high-value items on certain routes on the lines of what has been achieved on the Delhi-Mumbai route by Concor's Container Rajdhanis.

The passenger has been spared this time around, though he is expected to get a better deal with Rs. 200 crores allocated for passenger amenities for 2000-01 _ a hike of 56 per cent over last year. In addition, he will have the benefit of a Passenger Rese rvation System (PRS) extended to 80 more stations this year, taking the total to around 500. A National Train Enquiry System (NTES), being developed to disseminate real-time information on the status of trains running at all stations, and tele-booking ar e some of the major initiatives that employ information technology to make train journeys less of a hassle.

(The author is former Member _ Mechanical _ Railway Board.)