Preferring a populist stance ahead of polls in five States, including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, railway minister Suresh Prabhu has cleverly decided not to raise fare and freight rates, eschewing a move that could have hauled Indian Railways out of an ever-worsening financial mess. Invariably, the biggest challenge staring the state-owned behemoth in the face is how to mobilise resources to fund capital expansion and modernisation. The proposal to sell land to prevent encroachment and increasing revenue through advertisements are steps in the right direction. Also, how about listening to E Sreedharan on bullet trains that it is a white elephant?
KS Jayatheertha
Visionary move
We have seen, after a long time, a passenger-friendly visionary railway Budget. Since the Indira Gandhi days, railway ministry was headed by politicians who treated it as a means to gain politician mileage by introducing economically unviable sops.
This time there is a promise to lay new tracks rather than add more trains on strained routes. The minister’s real challenge would be to raise funds. In this respect, the Debroy Committee’s recommendations to hive off unrelated businesses and welfare organisations and sell unusable property would be handy.
YG Chouksey
Pune
Wrong signals
In the politically charged situation now prevailing in the country, the presentation of the railway Budget 17 passed off as a very low-key affair.
While no hike in passenger fare came as a relief, no worthwhile initiative was spelt out to improve the Railways to provide better services despite the benefit of falling fuel costs.
The announcement of airplane-type features such as on-board entertainment, apps and wi-fi services is implementable only in long-distance super-fast trains with state-of-the-art systems. The success of the proposal for cleaning toilets through SMS requests is hard to visualise due to passenger congestion and dearth of cleaning staff.
That the minister has reserved the announcement on ‘bullet trains’ for another day has not gone unnoticed.
The rail is the preferred and cheap mode of transport for millions of people. Even if our trains are not sophisticated as in the developed countries, they have to be more travel-worthy.
G David Milton
Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu
Reinventing the wheel
Nothing ever changes except reinventing the wheel of lost opportunities. Even after so many Budgets, the world’s largest rail network still lags behind in becoming the world’s best-kept in terms of amenities, cleanliness, passenger safety and being tech-savvy. Instead of taking decisive decisions, we take ill-conceived ones.
Take bullet trains, for instance. Is there a spade work in place in managing the unmanned level crossings for bullet trains to chug on? New trains, revised rates and low freight charges hold pride of place in Railways scheme of things, but the proportionate infrastructure remain abysmal.
R Prabhu Raj
Bengaluru
Right cuts
The article “An opportunity to reform fertiliser sector” by R Mukundan of Tata Chemicals clearly spells out the benefits of direct benefits transfer in the fertiliser industry. As the article rightly says, it gives the farmer to choose his product and at the same time it stands to benefit the government, who can save by calling off subsidy for wealthy farmers like it did with LPG subsidies.
Vikram Sundaramurthy
Chennai
Caste conundrum
The heated argument on caste by HRD Minister Smriti Irani and BSP leader Mayawati in the Rajya Sabha was really nauseating, to say the least. It was in cheap taste when Irani offered to cut her head off and lay it at the feet of Mayawati if she failed to convince her.
Should not an HRD minister be cautious about her utterances that too when she was speaking in the Elders’ House?
Tharcius S Fernando
Chennai
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