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Bansal’s Maiden Venture

To continue or decline? That’s the question railway minister P K Bansal has tried to answer in his maiden budget without really addressing the core issue—how to develop without hurting ordinary people. Railway Ministers irrespective of party or alliance to which they belong have all along been favouring their constituencies and states with an eye to vote while deliberately indulging in parochialism. Perhaps Lalbahadur Shastri of Congress and Madhu Dandavate of Janata Dal were notable exceptions. Not that P K Bansal in his so-called balanced exercise that can hardly be interpreted as ‘a call to action’ has totally broken with the past. Nor would he abandon the usual practice of increasing fares prior to budget to avoid criticism as passenger fares, though they say modestly, were increased only last month through administrative fiat. Mr Bansal tried to woo voters in Congress-ruled and poll-bound Rajasthan by announcing a Rs 1000 crore state-of-the art coach factory in Bhilwara. And Rae Bareli being the constituency of Sonia Gandhi got special attention as opposition BJP leader Gopinath Munde would dub it ‘Rai Bareli Budget’, not railway budget.

Barring Congress, all political parties, including the redoubtable supporters of Congress Government at the Centre—Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and some coalition partners of UPA criticised the railway budget presented by a Congress minister after a lapse of 17 years, for its discriminative treatment meted out to poor states like UP, Bihar and West Bengal. Even the Nationalist Congress Party, the oldest ally of Congress in Maharashtra and at the Centre slammed Bansal’s ‘cautious walking’ for neglecting Mumbai where 80 lakh commuters face a nightmarish journey day in and day out. Nobody, however, raised the issue of hell people daily face in the busiest railway stations in the east—Howrah and Sealdah.

Providing internet facilities to young people in running trains matters little to the unemployed. While reservation through website is billed as a panacea, the jobless would like to know how to fill 1.52 vacancies in the railways. Bansal has no answer.

The hike in freight charges to neutralise the hike in fuel costs will have cascading effect, making inflationary pressure intolerable for ordinary wage earners. Then freight has always been the bread winner of the Indian Railways. But Mr Bansal has left room open for cement, steel and petroleum products to move on to road traffic. In other words an increase in freight rates upto 5 percent won’t be able to fetch sufficient revenues to minimise the overall deficit but it will increase the cost of inputs in every sector while adding to inflation woes. As things are another bout of hike in freight cannot be ruled out, possibly after the general election.

They are pinning too much hope on building new rail lines and freight terminals through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) route but if past experience is any guide this model is unlikely to deliver. Mr Bansal’s attempt to improve operating efficiency factor may improve the situation marginally but unless operating ratios are brought back to 70 percent level the possibility of which seems remote, the railways will remain in perpetual red, needing budgetary support all the time.

Security dominated the budget discourse, and quite justifiably, in view of the growing atrocities in railway compartments, particularly against women, but critics just played with the gallery without offering a concrete plan of action. In conclusion opposition parties are in agreement that Bansal’s maiden budget helps neither the poor nor the nation. As for security every year they promise better arrangement and services but in the end one finds the growing violence on the track and women remain most vulnerable in all categories of trains. Bansal’s assurance to raise a few companies of women RPF is too inadequate to meet the challenge. As for RPF the less said the better as they themselves sometimes indulge in violence against women. Also, they harass helpless passengers instead of helping them in times of stress and strain while on move.

The steady decline of permanent staff in the Railways started well before the advent of ‘reforms’ initiated by the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh combine in the nineties. The downsizing of regular workforce has been going on unabated since then. Indian railway network despite its expansion over the years has lost the boastful distinction of prime job creator. They now depend on contractual practice to get things done. The systematic farming out of railway jobs to private players has virtually choked the scope of departmental job creation. And if their PPPs scheme succeeds, the Railways may dismantle many departmental work altogether to pave the way for further privatisation.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 35, Mar 10-16, 2013

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