With just few hours to go for the Railway Budget, we examine the state of the railways, the challenge facing the railway's minister and the future prospects for this institution.
CNBC-TV18’s Karan Thapar discusses the issue with the Former Chairman of the Railway Board, Satish Vaish; Director, International Relations at the Asian Institute of Transport Development, Sumant Chak and Indian Railways’ Professor at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, Professor G Raghuram.
Few weeks back there was news that the expenditure has gone up by Rs 1,330 crore whilst earnings are down by Rs 1,142 crore taking the next deficit to Rs 2,500 crore.
According to Vaish, it is not at all serious because this deficit depends upon so many factors which are not under control of the railway. "The important thing to watch is that the railway does not throttle the economy. The factors, which have come in, like increase in diesel price, inflation, disturbances, all these things will continue, I don't think we can change them. We have to earn more and we have to do some big things," he adds.
However, Chak says, it is certainly a cause for worry. "What is scary is the long-term scenario, which you see on the railways, because it will tend to throttle the economy. If economy grows at a particular rate, the transport demand grows almost 1.25 times that. With the gross domestic product (GDP) growth being pegged at 9 per cent, the railway should grow at about 12-13 per cent, which they are not. Not only that, you don't see any capacity being created for the railway to carry additional traffic," he adds.
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