Derek O’Brien: “Suresh Prabhu, pause on bullet trains to see this”

In India, the railways serve a social as well as an economic purpose. That is why not every Indian Railways project, investment or train service is seen in commercial terms but considered with regard to the connectivity and developmental purposes it serves. Railway hospitals and infrastructure, for instance, help a larger community in the places they are located in.

We have heard of many poor but determined young children studying at night at railway stations because these are always lit up. This is a sad and unfortunate reality and one wishes the children concerned did not have to do this but could study from the comfort of their homes. But it is a fact in our country.

Indian Railways has been a big supporter of Indian sport. The corporate sector and all those private sector fat-cats who complain and tweet about the absence of a sports culture in India rarely put their money where they mouths—or their keyboard-loving fingers—are. They sponsor glamorous sports such as cricket, tennis and golf but expect the government to take care of the rest. Indian Railways has stepped in admirably here, over the years and decades. The great PT Usha, to take but one example, was supported by her employer, Indian Railways, as she raced across Asia, winning numerous gold medals for the country.

This year, with the merger of the Railway Budget with the General Budget, these nuances and sensitivities, these larger social obligations of the railways, have been completely side-tracked. The generosity and sense of mission has gone. In 2016, one-third of the Indian contingent to the Rio Olympics was from Indian Railways. How have they been repaid? By changing rules and making it difficult for sportspersons to train.

The earlier 330-day special casual leave (SCL) will now be given to only a certain category of sportspersons, including Olympics and Commonwealth Games medal winners. The 120-day SCL granted to players without a medal, but with the potential to win one, has been cut to 90 days. Even the provision of half-day leave has now been discontinued, being allowed only in exceptional cases. This will come in the way of regular training. My friend, Suresh Prabhu, please find a solution to this.

The reason Indian Railways, under the leadership of the BJP government, is cutting corners and starving valid programmes of money is because the organisation has made a mess of finances. The gross traffic receipts (GTR) for 2017-18 has been projected at ₹188,998 crore. In 2016-17, the GTR was projected at ₹184,819 crore. But the revised estimates of the Budget admitted to a shortfall of ₹12,664 crore. It is obvious that even this year's projection will fall short. The government is not being honest with the state of railway finances. For the first time since 1978, there was a drop in freight earnings compared to the previous year.

As a Kolkata resident, it makes me proud that the Kolkata Metro Railway is performing very well. Budgetary GTR projections for 2016-17 were at ₹242 crore. Revised estimates pushed up this figure to ₹256 crore. Kolkata Metro, Northeast Frontier Railway and East Coast Railway are the only zonal railways that have posted better figures that the initial budgetary projections. It is here that Indian Railways should be investing, instead of splurging on unviable and grandiose "Bullet Train" projects in politically-favoured regions of the country.

The real work and the real improvements in Indian Railways are not glamorous. Take the example of bio-toilets. There is a Railway Budget promise to fit all coaches of all trains of Indian Railways with bio-toilets by 2019. The government has given up on this. In reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha a few days ago, it said only "about 800 trains" had "either some coaches or all the coaches fitted with bio-toilets". This is a tiny percentage of the total trains that Indian Railways uses. Why are bio-toilets not a priority?

The government is playing with the long-term stability of the railways. This worries me, as somebody who has had generations of his family working in the railways, and who cares deeply for Indian Railways. Since Independence, capital spending on the railways has largely been borne by the central government, and for obvious reasons. The BJP government has pushed 70 projects with nine state governments that require financial and other resource contributions by those state governments.

Many of the states in question are cash-starved and don't have the capacity or experience to execute such massive infrastructure projects. If we are not careful,then these state governments will eventually be saddled with white elephants. Of course by then, the BJP government would have been voted out. It will require the successor government, which will take over in May 2019, to begin the long and gradual process of reviving the railways.

Derek O’Brien is a Trinamool Congress MP and leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha. He tweets at @quizderek

This article first appeared on the writer’s Facebook and Twitter pages and on NDTV.com on February 20, 2017

This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. National Herald neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.