From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Feb 22: Ahead of the Union Railway Budget to be presented in parliament on February 26, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has demanded safety and modernization on passenger trains must be given the highest priority.
Based on a survey conducted by the ASSOCHAM team, which interviewed 7,000 people representing all sections in 20 cities, it said a moratorium on new passenger trains and sought the focus of the railway budget must be on safety and modernization, improving existing track and rolling stock and separation of passenger and freight train lines.
The passengers want trains to run at much higher speed even at 180 to 200 kms per hour and heavy investment in safety related areas like more efficient signaling, GPS based train control, and making serious attempt in implementing the corporate culture in running the largest transportation system, ASSOCHAM said.
Releasing the findings of the survey based on the interviews, the ASSOCHAM President Rajkumar Dhoot said:
“We have 63,974 route kms, 1,31,206 bridges 9000 locomotives, 51,000 passenger coaches, 2,19,931 freight cars operating 19,000 trains each day transporting over two million tons of freight and 23 million passengers every day touching 7,083 railway stations across the length and breadth of this vast country and yet sadly lack the corporate culture.”
Majority of the respondents feel that the large private sector participation in railways will be possible if investors were convinced that the government is committed to run it as profitable entity.
There has been widespread public acceptance of recent modernization Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad airports despite the huge costs involved and the private sector participation in their construction and running, it said.
The country cannot ignore the huge demand for rapid urbanization and immigration of people from villages and small towns to metros and mini-metros would create for more transportation, ASSOCHAM said.
Though roads would also share this burden, he said long distance travel could only be comfortable and possible on mass scale with railways.
Mumbai had a population of 18.14 million in 2011, which would grow to 25 million in 2015, while Delhi and Kolkata would jump from 14.11 million to 16 million and Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and other mini-metros would cross 10 million.
As many as 500 million would be living in urban areas in 2030, the ASSOCHAM said.
This urban bulge would give us an idea of what would be the size of the long distance travelling public in the immediate future. There is therefore no escape from building a most modern scientifically designed and ICT based railway system.
As this will take at least a decade to implement in full, there is also no escape from starting the process right now itself. Also it is self-evident that such a system has costs and cannot be run as a social service at a huge discount to the travelling public forever.
Accepting that as a public utility catering to the needs of a people with wide variation in socio-economic capability, the railways could not always apply economic viability to every service it provides, most people would like to suggest that the transport major must be compensated for social service obligation from general revenues.
ASSOCHAM suggested an annual grant of Rs 15,000 crore to the railways from the general budget in addition to an one time grant of Rs 20,000 crore suggested earlier for safety related investments and preparing the railways for transformation to the new responsibilities.
It also wanted a three-way split of the undertaking with the passenger and frieight sections becoming separate entities and the operations alone under the direct control of the Railway Board.
The Board itself will have member each from these two separate entities and will concentrate on planning and monitoring and will have overall authority to issue directives to the two separate entities from time to time.
This arrangement would also ensure that the well knit structure of the railways at present is focused on implementation of operation directly under the Board, which can set efficiency and economy norms.
The Zonal Managers should be given more autonomy and financial powers and made accountable for pre-set operational indices.
The financial arrangement could be worked out with the assets being owned by the Railway Board and treated as leased out to the two corporations dealing with passenger and freight customers, the ASSOCHAM said.