Criticising Railway Budget
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 09, 2014 -

Two days ahead of unveiling the first Union Budget of the newly installed BJP-led NDA Government at New Delhi, the Railway Budget 2014 was introduced in the Parliament by Railway Minister DV Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday.

Giving a strong signal on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resolve to curb populism and make tough decisions on politically sensitive issues, reform is the key word in the Railway Budget 2014 and it has revealed a major policy shift wherein India would allow foreign investments in its state-run, colonial-era railroad network.

At the same time, the new railway budget has vowed to build a corridor of high speed trains and radically overhaul services.

So there is the announcement for introduction of the first bullet train and nine-high-speed rail among 58 new trains that would chug along the tracks.

Other notable reformative measures in the new railway budget included serving of cooked and ready-to-eat meals of known brands, taking action against vendors for poor quality of food, introduction of food courts to be introduced at major stations, increasing the budget for cleanliness of the railway station by 40 per cent and installations of CCTVs at stations to monitor cleanliness as well as allowing third party inspections in this regard, revamping the ticket reservation system and facilitating ticket-booking through mobile phones and post offices, "Office-on-Wheels", Wi-Fi and workstation facilities on select trains, SMS wake-up call for passengers and posting of 4,000 women constables on trains for ensuring safety of women travellers. In short, reform is the word in the new railway budget.

However, as usual, it is time for attack of the Opposition parties on the new railway budget slamming it for alleged lack of vision and offering nothing for the poor. But this is what the BJP or any other party now in power would have said if they were in the opposition.

While Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has denounced the Railway Budget as a poor budget that has left out many States like Kerala and West Bengal, BSP chief Mayawati has wondered how does the NDA Government plan to implement such ambitious plans, when the railways has countering such massive losses. Here, what we would like to point out to all the political parties and their leaders, who are criticising the new railway budget is that if many States like Kerala and West Bengal have been left out this time, many States like those in the Northeast region that were never included in any of the past railway budget have got something to cheer about this time as seven new trains have been proposed and a sum of Rs 5,116 crore has been earmarked for the various railway projects in the region.

On the other hand, those who are supposedly showing concern over from where the money would come for the implementation of such ambitious railway projects, appears to have never heard about the bit of borrowing and involvement of private investors through PPP model that the Government has proposed for the infrastructural development for railways.

So, instead if just criticising just for the sake of it, what we would like these opposition parties to come up with some reasonable question like why FDI is being talked about in the railways when surplus investible funds from PSUs could be used for infrastructure creation and what would be fate of Indian railways when there is more and more privatisation, all in the name of giving some comfort to the travellers?