The Indian Railways is not a charity organization. On the contrary, it is one of the few publicly-owned rail systems in the world that makes a profit and pays the government dividends. The previous minister for railways, Lalu Prasad, set a trend for this. But his last budget as railways minister was made with an eye to the elections and thus had a pronounced populist tilt. Mamata Banerjee has just returned to the railways as a minister, and she has chosen to follow the precedent set by Mr Prasad’s last budget. Her rail budget for 2009-10 proposes no increases in either passenger fares or freight tariff. She has also announced that monthly season tickets would be available at Rs 25 for people with a monthly income of up to Rs 1500 for travel up to 100 kilometres. She has extended concessions to students of madrasas. Students in Calcutta are specially favoured because the budget proposes that concessional monthly season tickets will be available to them for travel in the Calcutta Metro. These were among the slew of sops that she offered. Together with these she announced the introduction of new trains and air-conditioned double-decker coaches for inter-city travel. There was nothing of significance on the revenue side to indicate how the extra expenditure would be covered. This only suggests that the return on the capital employed in the railways would be reduced.

What is unfortunate is that the budget shows no initiative in the sphere of maintenance and overhauling. The state of the infrastructure that makes possible the smooth running of the railways calls for immediate attention. Tracks are poorly kept and are often in a precarious state. This not only reduces the speed of trains, but also increases the risk of accidents. The tracks need overhauling and replacement, as do the numerous bridges that fall under the aegis of Indian railways. The railways are dependent on a huge and complex system of computers — from signalling and operations to many passenger facilities, all are served by the computer network. This demands continuous upgrading and improvement. For this, money and resources are required. The absence of any scheme to generate more revenue means that such improvements have, in all probability, been shelved or are not on the railway minister’s radar.

Fundamentally, what the rail budget lacks is a vision. It has an aim: to please the public. This cannot be a vision. That the railways should serve the public better and more efficiently goes without saying and needs no reiteration in a budget. In an ambience of reform, will the railways continue to be publicly-owned and be seen as a social service? There are grounds to suspect that Ms Banerjee’s answer to this question will be in the affirmative. Hence she is complacent in her populism and in her refusal to admit that what is good for the people is not necessarily always good for the railways as a business undertaking.