The Kakodkar Committee reviewed and suggested enhancing safety of railway system, Sam Pitroda Committee recommended modernization of railways, Mittal Committee recommended measures to raise the revenues of Indian Railways, and Sreedharan Committee reviewed and suggested delegation of power for rail projects to the lower level of bureaucracy and rationalization of tendering. The Bibek Debroy Committee recommended limiting the role of Railway Board, revamping of human resource functions and switching over to commercial accounting.

According to Ministry of Railways, action is afoot to implement recommendations of Kakodkar Committee on Safety Review, found acceptable, as per the availability of funds. As for Sam Pitroda Committee report, action has been initiated on various recommendations, such as, elimination of level crossings, unmanned level crossings, mechanized maintenance of tracks, introduction of new generation of locomotives, high speed potential LHB (German) coaches, up gradation of suburban coaches, green toilets on all passenger trains, development of modern high pay to tare ratio to wagons, enhancement of passenger amenities at stations and on trains, development of various Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) models to attract private investment, feasibility of high speed, semi high speed corridors etc. Pitroda Committee recommended a fund requirement of Rs.5.6 lakh crore for various modernization works, daunting tasks for the Government.

As for Mittal Committee report, some of its recommendations have already been incorporated in the budget speech of the Railway Minister. Other recommendations are under review and will be considered, implemented and monitored, a source in the Ministry of Railways said. Sreedharan Committee report, which recommended a proper system and procedure to ensure accountability and transparency at the General Manager and other functionaries levels for taking all commercial decisions and tendering are under review for further action. However, Bibek Debroy Committee report on organizational restructuring and reforms having far reaching implications are yet to be implemented. The Bibek Debroy Committee, whose final report has also been received, has separately examined Restructuring and reforms of Indian Railways, said an official source in the Ministry of Railways.

Lackadaisical approach of the Ministry of Railways on implementing recommendations of various expert committees points to one direction that a time schedule be prescribed for a time bound implementation of such reports lest it should be futile and wastages of scarce resource of the railways. In this connection, it is recalled here that first committee on railway reforms, the Sarin Committee report of 1973, was resurrected by the Deve Gowda Government in 1996, and six new Railway Zones were created. One more Railway Zone was created and added by the Vajpayee Government later, making a total of 16 Zones on Indian Railways, pointing out a bizarre way of functioning of the Ministry of Railways!