The Hindu : An indefensible move

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 31, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

An indefensible move

BY REITERATING ITS approval for creating seven new Railway zones (in addition to the nine that exist), the Union Cabinet has only prepared the ground for further deterioration of the financial health of the Indian Railways. Rather than facilitating development, the new zones are bound to increase expenditure on establishment and personnel (to push files) in a big way. With revenue mobilisation by the Railways already declining year after year, the money needed for the setting up of zones will have to be raised by curtailing expenditure on projects such as laying of new lines, electrification of tracks and procurement of rolling stock apart from maintenance of the existing tracks and bridges. The impact this could have on Railway finances and more so on rail safety hardly needs any elaboration. By insisting that the Cabinet stick to its earlier decision — on the creation of seven new zones — the Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, has only paved the way to consign the recommendations of the Khanna Committee (on rail safety) and the Rakesh Mohan Committee (on rationalisation of staff) to the trashcan. Mr. Kumar has, in the process, negated all that was said in the "Status Paper on Indian Railways, Issues and Options" he himself had brought out as late as in May 2002.

Be that as it may, the issue of carving out seven new zones has given space to a political spat too with the Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, finding in this an opportunity to display her theatrics. While there are valid reasons involving the finances of the Railways against the "readjustment" of zones, Ms. Banerjee, as usual, is unconcerned with all these. As one who had held the Railways portfolio (between the two terms Mr. Kumar has been Minister for Railways), Ms. Banerjee has not raised any of the serious issues involved in the game. All her concerns are restricted to the bifurcation of the Eastern Railway (and the creation of the East Central Railway with its headquarters at Hajipur) and its fallout as she and a cross-section of the political class from West Bengal perceive it — that it will diminish the importance of Kolkata in the railway map. Ms. Banerjee's perspective on issues has not transcended such parochial considerations and her statements all these days on this issue too were hardly surprising. But then the Trinamool Congress leader has not stopped just with threats of an agitation and has accused the Union Cabinet of endorsing the note put up by the Railway Minister in return for Mr. Kumar's "help" to "cover up the sordid Godhra massacre". This is a serious charge on the face of it. But then the fact that the Trinamool Congress chief has levelled this allegation only after the Union Cabinet's decision to go ahead with the creation of new zones (and the bifurcation of the Eastern Railways from Ms. Banerjee's point of view) detracts from its credibility.

The consequence of all these has been a complete distortion of the facts and the adverse impact of the decision on the stability of Railway finances and on rail safety has been lost in the debate. Neither the exercise in semantics indulged in by the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Sushma Swaraj, that the formation of the East-Central Railway be seen as "readjustment" rather than as "bifurcation" nor the moves of Ms. Banerjee would seem convincing. The rationale for creating additional zones to improve the operational efficiency (as recommended by the Railway Reforms Committee in 1984) had become outdated due to the leaps made in the area of Information Technology since then. The geographical sprawl does not matter any longer when it comes to managing traffic and monitoring freight movement. Apart from this, the argument that setting up of zonal headquarters in backward regions as a means to set right the developmental imbalance will convince only the naive. The Railways played an important role in economic development only in those areas where manufacturing units (for wagons, carriages and locomotives) and workshops for maintenance of the rolling stock were set up. Zonal headquarters have the scope to employ just clerks and officers and such personnel need not come from in and around the towns where they are situated.

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