Making improvement in the rail services, including safety and timely running of trains and providing public amenities, has been a long standing demand of the public which the government has failed to provide, which indicated mishandling of the Indian Railways. When people were demanding timely running of trains, some of them running 12 hours late, Modi government announced that they would run bullet trains. Nothing more. Trains were allowed to run late, and no effective steps were taken to improve the rail services. India has been witness to the modus operandi of her governments, who first cause the public sector enterprises to perform too badly to run, and then come with proposal of privatization as a the solution. They know, only the rich can take over, and the others will be automatically excluded. Even within the rich, most of the benefits of privatization go to the favourites of the ruling establishment. The whole exercise of privatization of the present regime cannot be rightly understood out of the context of its background just mentioned.

Modi government has eyed the huge property of the Indian Railways network for private sector is now not a secret. Its independency of functioning has been systematically sabotaged which was reflected finally in approval of dismantling of the separate Railway Budget in September 2016 to be implemented from 2017-18, which was done in the name of nationalism by calling the earlier practice as a British legacy. Within three years they rapidly moved to the present state of Mega Private Trains Project. Over 109 pair of routes for this project has already been identified. Moreover, the trains will be manufactured by the private sector.

The government that did not give attention to the public demand of improving the rail services in the country, is now giving all the facilities to facilitate the private sector putting the government run railways at a disadvantageous position. Creamy routes are carved out and 12 clusters are made for them. Timings of the private trains are also allegedly in their favour as against the Indian Railways’ trains. The clusters will cover the cities that serve as lifeline of the country, such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Howrah, Patna, Prayagraj, Secunderabad, Jaipur, Chennai, and Bengaluru.

It had already been reported nine months ago in September 2019 that Indian Railways under Modi regime had planned to privatise railways in a big way. Dedicated Freight Corridors between Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata was already planned which were intended to be commissioned by December 2021. Insiders say that about 90 per cent of the existing high density routes on these corridors being freed from freight traffic and released for additional passenger traffic for starting high speed luxury trains to mop up more passenger traffic. Accordingly, bid documents were already being worked out for global tenders. Besides, some other routes across the country were also planned to be opened to private train services including sub-urban rail services in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Secunderabad. Government had also allocated about 1300 crore rupees for upgrading the existing Mumbai-Delhi and Kolkata-Delhi tracks to run the private trains at the speed of 160 kilometre per hour. The government had denied privatization move at that time, and simply said that the government was for private investment in Indian Railways, but not for its privatization. The latest move of the government has proved that they were lying at that time.

Modi Government has also been trying for all out corporatization of all the eight production units that manufacture rail coaches, locomotives, both diesel and electric, and wheels and axles plants. The modalities of such corporatization have already been decided, and the process of which would begin in FY 2021. Indian Railways Rolling Stock Company was floated within 100 days of Modi’s second term. At that time the Chairman of the Railway board had said, “Ultimately, our production units will have to produce coaches and locos, which are fit for a speed of 160 kmph.” Now we came to know with the present decision of the government that train coaches will be manufactured by the private sector which will run at 160 kmph, on the private routes by private operators.

It clearly shows that Modi government has been lying all along these years claiming that their government will not privatise Indian Railways until they are in power. Additionally, no decision has been taken as to what will happen to the existing employees in case of full corporatization of the units. Apprehension is there about the fate of workers in these production units in particular, and in the Indian Railways in general, where increasingly large number of them are working with contractors, and regular new appointments with job securities are almost stopped. We have already seen how little this government care about the workforce during recent lockdown during which millions of migrant workers extremely suffered and hundreds of them even lost their lives. It can safely be said that corporatisations of Indian railways production units will further open it to private and corporate investments opening their routes to further automisation reducing employment therein, while existing workforce may not be compulsorily retired. It will further increase the costs of rail services.

Private participation in rail services has been tried ever since globalization of Indian economy was set in motion in 1991 right from the “Own Your Wagon Scheme’, operation of luxury/super luxury rail heritage tourism on the pattern of Palace on Wheels tourism train being operated in collaboration with Rajasthan Government’s tourism corporation, building rail infrastructure and logistics on BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) basis. All came a cropper as no private investor came forward having been wary of long gestation between investment and return in the capital-intensive railways and private investor’s sole motive being profit earning. Even partnership with state governments in building rail infrastructure has not taken off except few states on the ground of resourcelessness of most of the state governments. Even private container freight services in competition with the CONCOR (Container Corporation of India), an arm of Indian Railways has performed dismally.

The basic question the nation confronts now is: Is privatization of Indian Railways being done for the benefit of the nation, or for a select group of government’s favourites? Time will tell the right answer, but today it seems anti-people, since the private trains has an elite character. It impinges people’s right to cost effective bulk transportation and travel. (IPA Service)