Aache din (good days)” are certainly here for Indian Railways, which stands to gain Rs 10,000 crore because of the huge hike in passenger fares and freight charges. The increases were reportedly to be announced on May 16 by the then UPA government. But, after it was defeated in the general election, it passed the buck to the Narendra Modi government. Whether the Modi government should have announced this hike with the Budget barely a fortnight away is another matter. There is a view that the issue should have been discussed in Parliament instead of the railway minister defending the hike sheepishly by trying to put the onus on the earlier Congress-led government.
The 14-per-cent hike in passenger fares and 6.47 per cent in freight charges are hefty. The Opposition parties are asking for a rollback. They cannot be blamed for taking advantage of the situation after the tall promises made by the PM during the campaign. Analysts have already started trotting out figures on how the hike will stoke inflation as the prices of cement, steel, coal and various other items transported by rail will go up, not to mention the big hole it will burn in passengers’ pockets.
This pain is the result of the misplaced populism of the earlier government, which did not hike fares until last year. The result was that the railways were bleeding and unable to complete pending projects for lack of money. Plus, they also had to start new trains to oblige successive rail ministers or MPs who wanted trains from their constituencies to just about everywhere.
According to rail experts, 12,000 new trains were started of which 4,000 alone were began in the last two decades. It was cheap populism at the cost of the health of Indian Railways.
Rail travel in India is so cheap, experts say, that people, whether labourers or office-goers, travel to their homes three or four times a year, and for every festival or wedding. The railways were reportedly cross-subsidising passenger fares to the extent of Rs 26,000 crore annually.
If the hefty hikes are inevitable, will the Prime Minister assure the people that his rail minister delivers on service, efficiency, security and safety? The recent spate of accidents, which have killed scores of people, is due to lack of maintenance and overuse of tracks. Women and families have been robbed and assaulted on trains and passenger woes are aplenty.
Indian Railways needs to focus on freight, their bread and butter, which can add a 20 per cent increase to revenues.
Finally, where is Prime Minister Narendra Modi? It would assuage the pain of the people if he used the electronic media, and even social media, to tell them why the hike was necessary.
