There is much talk of the social obligations and responsibilities of railways. Under cover of this useful catch-all label, all manner of blatant chicanery takes place. Clear examples of IR being bled by free-loaders are unviable rail lines, increasing passenger services straining infrastructure, and static lower-class passenger fares. IR must be allowed to function mainly as a commercial carrier, to earn well to grow and adequately serve the economy.

It is important to insulate IR’s long-term strategic action plan from the whims and vagaries of individual railway ministers. IR needs to reorganise the management structure by businesses — segregating freight from passenger; reform and upgrade its accounting and costing systems; ensure quality in investments; revamp railway R&D; corporatise and privatise development and manufacture of railway equipment; and designate dedicated management teams for projects from inception to end. There is a lot it has to invest in; there is far more for it to divest and disinvest.

The amalgamation of the railway budget with the general budget is long overdue; a separate rail budget today is a glaring anachronism; the rationale of a dominant share in country’s traffic or its scale of revenues is no longer valid. It has just become a peg for every new rail mantri to hang his/ her personal agenda on and enjoy the euphoria of jagirdari.

Building new lines with sound economic purpose is important; maintaining them is more important. Let there be a moratorium on all new rail lines for now, except those required for defined capacity increases, viable industrial projects or strategic considerations.

There is no silver bullet, no single solution. What is required is a greater clarity on policy objectives and strategies, and expeditious implementation. IR needs to benchmark against productivity on Chinese railways, its only comparable peer. It must build an ethos of zero defect, zero failure of assets.

IR’s own White Paper and Vision 2020 Documents explain how, consistent with a rail renaissance worldwide, it must strive for larger modal share of freight and passenger traffic against its steadily shrinking share of just 30-35 per cent of nation’s freight and 10 per cent of passenger market. Traffic for rail has been smothered; capacity crunch has been endemic. Capacity enhancement on the saturated corridors is indeed the paramount need. Trains have to be longer, heavier and faster like what is happening on several systems: against IR’s heaviest freight trains of 4,500 tonnes with 22.5t axle load wagons, Chinese railways runs 20,000 tonne coal trains.

As part of its perceived social obligations, lR runs some 3,000 short-distance passenger services daily, including on branch lines. These slow sectional passenger trains are the worst offenders for loss-making; they also devour scarce capacity on high-density routes. IR must rationalise and drastically reduce the number of these trains. It may well have an autonomous corporate body manage all suburban and special passenger services as well as sectional passenger trains through an optimal modal mix. IR will thereafter be better placed to address the acute short supply of inter-city passenger services, substantially accelerating them, to run at 160-200 kmph, and developing a whole panoply of modern terminal and maintenance facilities. Simultaneously it can ill-afford to dither in regard to high speed “bullet” trains on selected corridors.

IR’s investment requirement in the decade 2011-20 is estimated at Rs 47 lakh crore ($950 b). It needs to raise revenues and cut costs. For justifying a special government stimulus package, it must sincerely squeeze and trim the apparatus. Excessive operating costs arise from a combination of operational inefficiencies, inadequate maintenance of assets, over-staffing, and poorly targeted capital investment. The myopic framework to keep raising freight tariffs has hurt IR. Ludicrously low fares for ordinary second class maintained for years at 14.9 paise/ pkm are wholly untenable.

IR must perforce induct substantial private investment. The much desired PPP is no free lunch — no private firm will volunteer for a project that will probably fail to cover its costs through freight and fare revenues. The Railway Reforms Committee’s advice some two decades ago that renewals and replacements of assets be accorded the highest priority has been often flouted. In fiscal 2009-10, Mamata Banerjee’s first budget, IR’s annual accounts registered the lowest ever net profit of Rs 0.75 crore; an amount of Rs 29,564 crore was withdrawn from the Depreciation Reserve Fund, Development Fund, Pension Fund and Capital Fund for the balance sheet to look somewhat healthy.

How do we ignore the stark reality of Air India, once the nation’s pride and the region’s envy, going down and under? Aren’t we pushing IR too hard towards a similar abyss? India can well survive without an Air India; it is inconceivable it can ever do without a healthy IR. IR’s ills are as multifarious as they are well known. Remedies too are not unknown. The need is to scrupulously follow the prescription. It will have to prioritise and pick up its ailments for cure — by surgery, if necessary.