Finance ministry leaves Mumbai Rail Vikas Corp in the lurch

In a turnaround from its stance prior to the MoU, the Ministry of Finance now insists that the Indian Railways take the loan directly from the World Bank, something the railways says it has never done.

“If we take a World Bank loan then the entire burden of foreign exchange fluctuations, principal and interest will have to be borne by us,” a senior railway official told Express Newsline. A World Bank team is expected in Mumbai next month to discuss this issue, he said.

The MRVC was to be the body executing the rail component of the state government’s Mumbai Urban Transport Project-II(MUTP-II) a five-year scheme that would rejuvenate the city’s suburban railway system and take care of passenger traffic into the next century. The MRVC was to perform the role of a construction company overseeing the completion of 12 suburban railway projects.

The MoU was signed on May 26 at the state guest house Sahyadri by Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar and Chief Minister Manohar Joshi. On the occasion, state bigwigs like Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde and Joshi waxed eloquent on how the new Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre had speedily cleared the MRVC proposal in a few months.

However, today the three-month deadline given for setting up the MRVC seems nowhere near accomplishment. On July 15, the Railway Ministry sent the MRVC proposal to the Ministry of Finance where it has remained ever since.

Though the railways are pushing ahead with the MUTP projects like 12-car rakes, the fifth and sixth lines between Thane and Kurla and optimising the fast corridor on the Central andWestern lines, they say progress will be retarded if the World Bank funding doesn’t come through soon.

“If it would take us around five years to execute the MUTP projects with World Bank funding, it might take us 10 years to raise the money and finish the projects,” a railway official explained.

The alternative would be for the railways to increase the allocation of the Metro Transportation Plan (MTP) allocation for the railways. The current railway budget provides Rs 250 crore to the MTP, of which Mumbai gets the largest chunk with Rs 165 crore.

That’s not all. Two highly contentious proposals to recover the Rs 4,740 crore MUTP investment are yet to be cleared. As a precondition to the loan, the World Bank has insisted that a tariff be imposed on commuters. This has been vigorously opposed by Minister of State for Railways Ram Naik, who has opposed this additional cess. “But ultimately the money will have to be collected,” a railway official said, citing the instance of the toll collection at theVashi naka setup to recover the costs of building the bridge to Navi Mumbai.

Another proposal for the commercial exploitation of railway land also hangs fire. Suggested nearly six years ago, the scheme envisages the railway leasing out surplus property, especially the space above railway stations to generate income. This too doesn’t seem to be coming through in a hurry as it involves a major change in railway policy.

“Even if we go in for this scheme, the money will come in only after six years. We still have to find the money to build the property,” a railway official explained.