Similarly, railways saw the number of retired employees to be serviced by it going up from 2.71 lakhs in 1981 to ten lakhs in 1998, says the study titled ``greying of Indian Railways''.

The massive rise in the number of pensioners is due to an increase in the life expectancy which presently stands at 78 years for a retired government servant, it said.

Largescale induction of staff during the fifties means their retiring in the nineties and this has also contributed to the burden of providing for pensions, it said adding about five lakh employees were recruited in the fifties.

As a consequence, the share of pensions to the working expenses of the railways has risen from 4.65 to 13.3 per cent per cent between the period 1981-98.

The provisions for pension out of the working expenses are expected to touch 19 per cent in 2005, compelling railways to shell out around Rs 7,000 crore in that year, says senior fellow of the institute, S N Mathur, in the study.

While, pension fund was established by Indian Railways way back in 1964, it never made adequate contributions based on scientific calculations such as life expectancy of pensioners, thereby creating implicit debt in process, says the study.