What compells Rail Minister Lalu Yadav to say "no privatisation".
“Lalu denies railway privatisation plans”, but pray why? Just because there has been a turn around which is credited more to his sagacity and less to the fast paced growth of Indian Economy, it does not mean that there is no scope for betterment or that there are no risks that the process of improvement and growth may get derailed.
It is common knowledge that the Indian Railways is facing a severe crunch in terms of resources needed for acquisition and renewal of rolling stock as well as the renewal of tracks. In fact, apart from the financial crunch the other factor is lack of capacity of the various ancillary units engaged in providing coaches, wagons etc.
For example look at the Mumbai suburban system- due to severe paucity of rakes, an important suburban segment of Vashi-Thane is served by a single rake.
Steps were initiated for provision of extra rakes only after the users resorted to agitation. Now, just think of the situation, the infrastructure related to this segment was created with financial partnership of CIDCO and then the railways could not increase the frequency because they were running short of rakes. In this scenario, I do not understand the reasons for going into denial mode. The project cost of Vashi-Thane rail may have run upto almost Rs. 400 crores or even more, off course two third of that must have been provided by CIDCO, but the fact remains that this segment remains underutilized because railways have not bee able to provide more that one rake. The cost of one rake, that too the latest one (Stainless Steel Body) may be less than Rs. 20 crores.
Perhaps, on reading this post (although chances are extremely dim), the Rail Minister may become livid in his own inimitable way and say that Indian Railways is not broke to the extent that it is not able to invest a few hundred crore rupees in new rakes; and well, that brings us to the other part of the story – the Indian Raiway may certainly have the cash to do that but the units (basically Govt. and / or Railways owned) engaged in manufacturing such rakes and coaches etc. may simply not be able to cope with the ever increasing demand.
When it is well known that the process of partnership with private players is already underway through various schemes like “own your wagons”, leasing of space in the brake vans etc., then why the denial? Is it just an exercise to impress the Left Parties and his original constituency comprising of largely illiterate, ignorant and gullible people?
It is my personal opinion that Shri Laloo Yadav is way too smart not to understand what ails the Indian Railways and from where the bottle-necks may emerge. He is just posturing for the sake of being politically correct in his chosen personal political space; it is a political compulsion; but there lies the catch. The apostle may not believe what he is preaching to be the gospel truth as he knows the truth but his followers being gullible, ignorant and illiterate may fall for his rhetoric and then the apostle may be forced to start believing the untruth that he had been preaching as the truth. Well this is the risk.
The only way out is to acknowledge the bottle-necks in the infrastructure development process of the Indian Railways and find ways and means to ensure that the pace of growth is not encumbered due to resource crunch. The need of the hour is to formulate a long term strategic plan and then follow it in the best possible manner. Otherwise, the train of improvement in the performance of Indian Railways may see the chain being pulled.
Post Script:
Next time when you wait for fifteen minutes at one of the Harbour Line Stations in Navi-Mumbai, pray that partnerships with private parties take place so that more rakes are made available. This is the only way that frequency of trains can be increased. It may also lead to commencement of local train service on Panvel – Karjat Section.
It is common knowledge that the Indian Railways is facing a severe crunch in terms of resources needed for acquisition and renewal of rolling stock as well as the renewal of tracks. In fact, apart from the financial crunch the other factor is lack of capacity of the various ancillary units engaged in providing coaches, wagons etc.
For example look at the Mumbai suburban system- due to severe paucity of rakes, an important suburban segment of Vashi-Thane is served by a single rake.
Steps were initiated for provision of extra rakes only after the users resorted to agitation. Now, just think of the situation, the infrastructure related to this segment was created with financial partnership of CIDCO and then the railways could not increase the frequency because they were running short of rakes. In this scenario, I do not understand the reasons for going into denial mode. The project cost of Vashi-Thane rail may have run upto almost Rs. 400 crores or even more, off course two third of that must have been provided by CIDCO, but the fact remains that this segment remains underutilized because railways have not bee able to provide more that one rake. The cost of one rake, that too the latest one (Stainless Steel Body) may be less than Rs. 20 crores.
Perhaps, on reading this post (although chances are extremely dim), the Rail Minister may become livid in his own inimitable way and say that Indian Railways is not broke to the extent that it is not able to invest a few hundred crore rupees in new rakes; and well, that brings us to the other part of the story – the Indian Raiway may certainly have the cash to do that but the units (basically Govt. and / or Railways owned) engaged in manufacturing such rakes and coaches etc. may simply not be able to cope with the ever increasing demand.
When it is well known that the process of partnership with private players is already underway through various schemes like “own your wagons”, leasing of space in the brake vans etc., then why the denial? Is it just an exercise to impress the Left Parties and his original constituency comprising of largely illiterate, ignorant and gullible people?
It is my personal opinion that Shri Laloo Yadav is way too smart not to understand what ails the Indian Railways and from where the bottle-necks may emerge. He is just posturing for the sake of being politically correct in his chosen personal political space; it is a political compulsion; but there lies the catch. The apostle may not believe what he is preaching to be the gospel truth as he knows the truth but his followers being gullible, ignorant and illiterate may fall for his rhetoric and then the apostle may be forced to start believing the untruth that he had been preaching as the truth. Well this is the risk.
The only way out is to acknowledge the bottle-necks in the infrastructure development process of the Indian Railways and find ways and means to ensure that the pace of growth is not encumbered due to resource crunch. The need of the hour is to formulate a long term strategic plan and then follow it in the best possible manner. Otherwise, the train of improvement in the performance of Indian Railways may see the chain being pulled.
Post Script:
Next time when you wait for fifteen minutes at one of the Harbour Line Stations in Navi-Mumbai, pray that partnerships with private parties take place so that more rakes are made available. This is the only way that frequency of trains can be increased. It may also lead to commencement of local train service on Panvel – Karjat Section.
posted by Better Tomorrow For India @ 2:02 AM
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