Wrecking trains

Neglect and caprice have shoved the railways towards disaster.

Indian Railways,one imagines,can take whatever a railway minister dishes out.

Indeed,under Lalu Prasad,the cost-return ratio known as the operating ratio even managed to drop down to a near-acceptable 76 per cent. But that didnt mean that a continual bending of priorities to suit the political ends of the minister in charge would leave the Railways unwarped. And now,when Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee stands up in Lok Sabha on Friday to present the railway budget for this year,it will be interesting to see whether she accepts the obvious,or takes refuge in denial. Because the glaring fact is this: the railways are close to disaster. As this newspaper reported on Wednesday,10 out of 16 of IRs zones missed their operating ratio targets which were already well over 100 per cent. Years of milking IR for populist schemes,of chronic underinvestment,mean the railways are,simply put,running out of resources.

Banerjee is much to blame for this scenario. She has been distracted by West Bengal politics,yes. But she has also subjected the railways to a particularly vicious philosophy of governance,in which the mai-baap state or in this case,incredibly,a mai-baap railways will set up everything from medical colleges to malls. In last years budget,even as the signs of disaster were evident,the minister announced six new bottling plants for drinking water. Also 10 eco-parks. Five sports academies. And as if that was not farcical enough,a Tagore museum and academy. It isnt just that Banerjee treated her cabinet post less as an infrastructure ministry and more as a state-within-a-state its that her imaginary state was being run on outmoded 1950s socialist lines. And like in all such states,investment has come to a stop,efficiency is going down,and its running off the rails.

Banerjee began her speech last year by saying that The time has come when our economists and social philosophers will have to consider that8230; the old mindset of economic viability should be substituted by social viability. Social viability only works if the railways are making money. Under Banerjee,they are not.