New Delhi, Feb. 17: The railways is “on the brink of collapse” financially and will require Rs 1 lakh crore over five years for safety, a panel has warned and proposed a cess on passengers.

The recommendations of the high-level safety review committee, set up by railway minister Dinesh Trivedi and headed by former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, come weeks before the rail budget.

The panel, which submitted its report to the minister today, said the safety cess could yield Rs 5,000 crore each year for the railways at a time its “financial condition is on the brink of collapse unless some concrete measures are taken”.

But Trivedi used the opportunity to pitch for government support, warning the railways could go the “Air India way” if funds were not pumped into the utility. “I am afraid it (railways) can go Air India’s way,” he said, referring to the central assistance for the state-owned airline.

“The funding patterns suggested by the committee are only recommendations. The railways will have to study the report and explore all options as safety is the first priority.”

Asked where the money would come from, the minister said there were various options such as “budgetary support, increasing fares, public private partnerships, borrowing from the market and generating funds from the huge land bank of the railways”.

The committee, though, stressed the need for a fare hike. “This (lack of fare revision) has strained the infrastructure way beyond its limit and all safety margins have been eaten up, pushing the railways to a regime of ad-hocism in infrastructure maintenance.”

“While the wholesale price index rose by about 300 per cent in the last 10 years, passenger fares for second-class travel more or less remained the same. Such kind of protracted reluctance to increase passenger fares had an ill effect on finances and in turn on safety.”