New Delhi: Asserting that railways was facing competition from other modes of transport, the Centre on Tuesday said that the premier Indian transporter should resist populism and even pitched for some of its sectors like hospitality to be outsourced.
“Railways got caught in a battle where populism prevailed over performance and the basic principle on which any commercial establishment is to be run, the first essential principle is that consumers must pay for the services that they receive,” finance minister Arun Jaitely said.
Year after year, the success of Railway Budget was measured by subsidising consumers and making populist announcements regarding trains, he said, in addition he said unless railways strengthens its performance and internal management system, it will lose out to competition from other sectors like highways and airlines in passenger transportation.
“The core competence of railways is really to drive trains, to provide those services. Hospi-tality may not be the core competence of the railways and therefore, what is not within its core competence, the principle of outsourcing — which is accepted world over — can be a logical addition to those activities of railways,” Jaitley said.
The government had in September scrapped the 92-year old practice of presenting a separate railway budget.
