We have once again gone through the laborious process of listening/watching the railway minister presenting a budget for more than one and a half hours—telling us about new trains, clean coaches, on-time trains, travel safety—the list goes on. Have you ever wondered why the railway minister gets the opportunity to present all this while, say, the telecom minister doesn’t get the same prime time to tell the nation how cheap it has become to make telecom calls and have Internet connections?

To answer the question we need to go back into history—-why do we have a separate railway budget and not the same for any other department. It is just a convention which has carried on from the days of British-rule which required separating the working of the commercial departments from the revenue side. Railways was the biggest commercial department, having a budgetary support of around 75%, which has now come down to 20-25%. So a separate railway budget is merely a convention and is not backed by a law. The government can abolish it anytime and it should think in that direction.

If abolishing the railway budget and aligning it with the general budget seems harsh on the railway minister, the least which can now be done is restrict it to just presenting the financial health of the organisation. No more of cleanliness, safety, punctuality and new trains bit, these are basic features of any service organisation. Why should precious money of tax payers and valuable time of Parliament be wasted in rattling year after year which new trains would be launched?

... contd.