Railway minister Sadananda Gowda made several key announcements in the Railway Budget. But is the Budget big on ideas and short on details? KC Jena, former Railway Board member says the railway minister had very little time, but he still managed to highlight all the issues that the railways needs to focus on.
"The railway minister has also tried to give some roadmap as to how to go about it," Jena told CMBC-TV18.
He believes implementation is key here. But, Jena is bothered by the over dependence on PPP. He says: "If you look at the very last figures you will find that over Rs 60,000 crore was expected for PPP, which the railway has not been able to pick up."
Also Read: Railway Budget 2014: Big on ideas but little on specifics
Below is the verbatim transcript of KC Jena's interview with CNBC-TV18's Menaka Doshi and Senthil Chengalvarayan.
Senthil: Lots of good ideas, how do you think we should prioritise them and are you a little unhappy that we did not have enough details or would you say he just had 40 days to prepare his Budget, this is as much as he could have given us?
A: I think so. He had a very short time at his disposal. He has been just able to flag the issues. He has highlighted all the issues which the railways need to focus on. He has also tried to give some roadmap as to how to go about it.
Senthil: Are there any issues here that have not been flagged earlier?
A: No. Railways issues cannot change. After all, the problems have been known for a long time but it is the solution that is important and the implementation that is important and therefore at what speed it is implemented, the sincerity in implementation is what is really required. In this scenario, it is important that the issues need to be taken forward. The only issue which of course bothers me is that there has been an over dependence on PPP and I really do not know how far this is going to fructify. If you see in the last few Budgets we have been talking of public-private partnership (PPP) and if you look at the very last figures you will find that over Rs 60,000 crore was expected for PPP which railway was not able to pick up.
Senthil: What has kept that out, what can you do to ensure that PPP comes in, what can you do to ensure that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) comes in because that is something you spoke about today as well?
A: PPP has not been successful in the railways fundamentally because of policy changes. When we adopt a particular policy for PPP - it was generally thought that this would be very acceptable to the industry and or the investor would jump in but unfortunately as time goes by or as the proposal is made out we always find that it becomes so complicated with the planning commission stepping in, the various other ministries getting in and giving their ideas that finally it becomes so complicated that the investor does not find it very friendly and possibly he is not getting enamoured with the proposals.
Second thing again has been the loss of investor confidence. Why I mentioned this is that if you see when we privatised the container trains we thought we had broken the barrier for the first time and we were trying to get into privatisation. It was welcomed with open arms. We had 16 parties joining in, buying container trains and operating them. So it was a very good move, but suddenly in 2009 and 2010, the railways went back on this policy and changed the ground rules and then it has come to such a pass now that some of these container companies have found that it is not viable to run these trains and have sold off their trains. This is a very bad thing which the railway will have to take care of.
First make a policy which is acceptable to the investor and second thing is stick to your policies.
Menaka: The problem that plagues railway PPPs is the problem that plagues all infrastructure PPPs and policies in this country. The two areas that clearly were a miss in terms of detail missing not the idea, is the raising of revenue and where that is going to come from aside from the passenger and freight hikes that we have seen in the recent past. Second there was a brief mention of restructuring Railway Board but no detail on how he intends to go about restructuring the railways itself. Is that something that you would expect more detail on in the next railway Budget or do you think that these are ideas that they haven't yet given enough attention to?
A: These ideas will get worked upon. My discussions with various people in the Railway Board indicate that there is a serious thought going into it. Not only they will wait for the next Budget, now itself they will start working on it and the pressure from all over to ensure that Indian railways comes back on track - I think they will try to work on top priority.
Menaka: If there were three ideas that you were to pick from the ideas that he presented today that you think deserve immediate attention and immediate implementation and hopefully some degree of outcome in the next few months what would they be?
A: I would very much like that the dedicated freight corridors come on track immediately. Today, capacity constraint is so heavy that we are unable to run our trains on heavily congested routes. The fact remains that in the last five years we have added over 700 passenger trains on Indian railways. While we are adding passenger trains and not increasing the line capacity, the capacity for freight to move has been totally limited. Therefore, it is freight which is giving us a very bad turn. Our cash cow has now turned out to be an area where we are really languishing because the internal generation which should have been as per the 12th plan - Rs 21000 crore per year is now being pegged at Rs 10,000 crore per year and therefore obviously you are falling short. The budgetary support which was supposed to be Rs 77000 crore per year - we are getting only Rs 53000 crore per year. Therefore how much can you depend on PPP is the question which needs to be addressed.
Menaka: That is the first issue, anything else you would like to add to that quickly?
A: No, second one of course is the emphasis on passenger amenities like cleanliness, which has been an issue, which has been bothering the Indian Railways. We have been trying but not successful. It is surely an area of failure on the part of the administration that we have not been able to go through and therefore if I feel that the sincerity with which they are addressing the issue now if they really take it forward we should be able to see something happening in this. I only hope that the railways will do something really serious to take care of this.
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