Once again it?s that time of the year when the minister for railways proudly places on the floor of the Lok Sabha all the great things that the ministry has achieved during the past year under his able guidance and what wonderful goodies he has to offer to the poor passenger, either as a new service or no hike in the tariff.
During the course of the year, the ministry may have already tweaked freight tariffs – upwards in order to cash in on a surge in movement of certain goods, commodities, or downwards in order to wean away freight from the road sector. The ongoing slowdown in the economy will certainly come in handy for Lalu to explain away the lower earnings and peg the next year?s targets at lower and realistic levels.
In the meantime, the lumbering giant is merrily chugging along with a few sparks of innovation here and there, but no quantum jump in efficiency to talk about. Except for some of the trains – the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis that are monitored by the minister?s cell – the punctuality record of most passenger trains continues to be rather dismal!
With the general elections round the corner, Lalu is now busy pulling out all stops to speed up work on some of his pet projects, and get considerable political mileage by inaugurating new ones before the Election Commission gets into the act and a freeze is imposed on all such populist activities.
The first in the series was inauguration on the 10th of this month the construction work on the 105-kilometre stretch of the Ganjkhwaja-Karwandiya section of the Sonenagar-Mughalsarai section of East Central Railway by none other than UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Though Lalu had got the Prime Minister to lay the foundation stones for both the Eastern and Western legs of the 3,300 kilometre-long Dedicated Freight Corridor project almost 3 years ago, not much progress has been made on the ground. This occasion, apart from considerable publicity in the remote areas of Bihar, has assured Lalu?s place firmly in the history books for having got the project physically started!
Continuing the good work, within a couple of days, Lalu himself laid the foundation stone for the new 270 kilometre Wardha-Yavatmal-Nanded line to be built for Rs 700 crore, with the new chief minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan gracing the occasion.
The Railway Board mandarins are now eagerly awaiting bids to be submitted by next week, by major multinational companies for setting up a state-of-the-art plant to build electric and diesel locomotives to meet the rising needs of the Indian Railways. While the diesel facility is slated to come up at Marhowra, the electric locomotives will be built at Madhepura, both in Bihar.
In Lalu?s scheme of things, no less than five more such projects are on the anvil. Brand new coaches are to be built at Rae Bareli – the construction of the facility was inaugurated a month ago. An axle and wheel plant, replicating the one at Bangalore is being built by Larsen & Toubro at Chhapra. A wagon repair plant each at Harnaut and Sonepur and last but not the least, a bogie manufacturing unit – the only one outside Bihar – at Pallakad, in Kerala!
Unfortunately, a similar mega political hand out by Nitish Kumar more than five years ago, when he formed seven brand new railway zones, increasing the number of zones from the existing nine to 16 overnight did not translate into success at the hustings for the NDA. How many of these plants will ultimately see the light of the day, and whether NPA will make any substantial gains in UP, Kerala and most importantly, Lalu?s Bihar remains to be seen!
The writer is former member of the Railway Board (mechanical)email : acharya@bol.net.in