The Railway Minister is expected to address issues for generating more and more internal resources to meet four critical requirements of depreciation, development, annual debt servicing of over Rs.30,000 crore, dividend payment to the General Exchequer; liquidation of arrears of over aged assets through Special Railway Safety Fund (SRSF) as figures for track renewals, procurement of rolling stocks show downward trends, fall in appropriation for Development Fund, drop in passenger, goods and other earnings incurring annual losses of over Rs.25,000 crore in passenger earnings, fall in system’s productivity, rise in input costs by 15 percent during the last two years resulting in increased unit costs of rail services, fall in revenue from premium trains in the light of investment in them, investment for facilities in non-premium trains, goods traffic and loading across goods showing tepid progress.

Suresh Prabhu is further expected to reset the targets as the projections are unrealistic and actual are most often much below the targets, inordinate delay in projects linked to country’s defence, addressing whether railways planning should be resource based or need based, reinventing the railways as a vehicle of social engineering and sustainable development as an organization with social responsibility with its tremendous connectivity network and not merely as a commercial entity with a profit motive.

According to speculations afloat the corridors of Rail Bhawan, the Railway Minister is expected to raise passenger fare and freight rates by 10 per cent and 6 per cent respectively, besides monetizing some of its unutilized surplus lands in the prime city centres across the country to meet the challenges of the implementation of enhanced emoluments of Railway work force arising out from the Seventh Pay Commission Report. The Minister is also expected to announce still more attractive marketing strategy to stem loss of market share in freight traffic to the roadways. In addition, Suresh Prabhu is expected further to announce strategy to meet emerging challenges of 60 to 90 tonnes of heavy haul trucks to be introduced on Indian roads, as also not increasing completion target of Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs) any further.

As for the passenger amenities, measures announced year on year are not working to the satisfaction of rail users because of unplugged leakages in revenue. Stricter measures for a meaningful implementation of passenger amenities like cleanliness, hygienic and standard food, punctuality of trains and other user friendly services are also expected to be announced. Rumour mill has it that the Railway Minister is also expected to unveil a new look Porters, known as Coolies, considered the foremost brand ambassadors of passenger services as an image make over exercise with trolleys with ads on it to mop up additional resources as also to provide a better user friendly services intended to spare Coolies from carrying luggage on their heads and shoulders. On the negative side, there are rumours that sops to senior citizen, children and different categories of people are likely to be curtailed or withdrawn.

The success of Indian Railways would lie in how best it can maintain equilibrium judiciously in both its commercial viability and social responsibility to take it to a newer heights to provide last-mile connectivity with adequate facilities to the passengers, as a worthy contributor to the national economy and as an organization to be emulated by other railways across the world!