|
This should teach us about budgets
THERE’S MUCH to lose oneself in between the smart and the silly. Probably no other country has a full and formal rail budget like India loves to have. If what happened after this year’s rail budget is any indication, the other nations seem to have more sense. There was enough to like and enough to unlike in Trivedi’s budget, but there was nothing to convince us that this is how budgets should be presented. The smartest thing Trivedi did was to link rail budgets to Five Year Plans. Nobody can turn anything around in our railways in a year. Five years is about the right time to fix things and move on.
The second intelligent thing was the move to modernise railway stations. Apparently, about 100 stations are to be modernised though there are no signs of this yet. New Delhi railway station has been improved but it is nowhere near being an airport. That is where the rail stations need to head to. They have to be self-financing units with space for malls and super-comfortable structures like modern airports are. The quantum of employment this could generate should make the government salivate. If there’s a money problem, as there always is, we could simply follow the airport model of privatising the running of airports. The government does not have the skillset or the bandwidth to do so.
The third interesting thing was the progress on disposal of human waste. There is absolutely no dignity in travelling by Indian trains with their humiliating and nauseating smells. It is awful that human waste should still be allowed to drop on land in trains. How difficult can it be to treat waste in trains like they do in planes and ships? Trivedi has only moved a little in this direction but if at least a dozen busy routes can be hygienic and modern, it could be a gamechanger.
 |
Photo: Vijay Pandey |
Talk about safety was smart politics and a politician should be allowed some wordplay. But even here, Trivedi was smart. How can you be broke and safe? If we wish to compete with the world, especially China with its breathtaking rail ability, we must be willing to pay. No one complains about bus or air fares. They figure out that progress is costly. Why then should trains be treated as dowry? They are a huge asset to India and must be treated as such. India is perhaps the only nation in the world that has not improved the design and comforts of its coaches in half a century. Most of our coaches and railway stations resemble open prisons. They are meant only for the young and fully fit. So, modern railway stations are a dream. Like all dreams, there’s a price to pay.
|
The smartest thing Trivedi did was to link rail budgets to Five Year Plans |
|
But there was enough silly stuff too from Trivedi. If he really did have the freedom to write his own proposals, he ought to have been more ambitious with the fare hikes. The hike he has proposed is only symbolic; it does nothing for revenue. It’s just the kind of fake policy that voters have begun to hate. Then, there is the economic absurdity of spending Rs 95 to earn Rs 100. How is the railways expected to survive?
There was one huge thing that Trivedi didn’t bother with. Our trains must stop running on diesel. Our power supply must reach levels where it can support all trains on all routes. If it takes a few thousand crore rupees to upgrade them, so be it. There’s no way we can compete with engines huffing and puffing on diesel. Diesel can’t touch the 250 kmph speeds we want to reach, and the fuel is getting pricier each day. On the whole, though, Trivedi has done us a favour. After the post-budget drama, we should know that budgets don’t really mean much. If they are to be dictated by a handful, our tax money must not fund them henceforth.
Vijay Simha is Executive Editor, Tehelka.com.
vijay.simha@tehelka.com
|
