Absentee landlords

For the last 16 years,no member of the main party of any ruling alliance has held the railways portfolio but now there is an opportunity to end that tradition. Apart from a brief spell in 2011 when Manmohan Singh briefly took on the ministry as an additional charge,it has always been handed out to coalition partners as payment for political support. Partners have typically used the ministry to launch populist measures for their constituencies instead of building the rail system in the national interest. New stations have been built where none was required. New trains have been flagged off without enough track to run on. Over more than a decade and a half,the rail system has suffered from poor maintenance and misdirected planning,and passenger safety has been the principal casualty.

The ministry argues that the accident rate is low in relation to the volume of traffic. This may indeed be so,but the absolute figures for accidents and mortality are unacceptably high there have been 11 serious accidents already in 2012. Despite its protestations,the ministry tacitly recognises the gravity of the problem and has formulated a plan to achieve zero accidents and zero failure in equipments by 2020. But it cannot work if it is derailed by populism. And after a spell at the tender mercies of the TMC,the rail system is at its nadir. Its financial reserves have been depleted,accidents have been shrugged off and ministers in office with the significant exception of Dinesh Trivedi,who was sent to the wilderness by the TMC for his pains have behaved like absentee landlords.

Now that Mukul Roy has vacated Rail Bhavan,the government should take charge of the ministry and undo the damage. Safety should be the first priority and if anti-collision equipment is not available,it should be imported. Functioning communications and firefighting systems should be installed. New tracks should be built to decongest existing routes so that proper track maintenance can be done. Funds must be secured and the private sector involved wherever possible. Without such measures,which a party with stakes in the system would have an incentive in implementing,the Indian Railways will remain a nonstop gravy train.