Gowda blasts UPA for neglect of railways

New Delhi: Union Railways Minister D V Sadanand Gowda lambasted the UPA government for having neglected the railways by virtually doing nothing to revive the sinking industry that runs in losses. The Minister accused the previous government for diverting the investments for populist measures instead of concentrating on mobilizing resources for the Railway. Gowda said that in the last 30 years, as many as 676 projects were sanctioned worth Rs 1,57,883 crore. “Of these, only 317 projects could be completed and 359 projects remain to be completed which will now require as much as Rs 1,82,000 crore”, he added.

Exposing the UPA track-record, the Minister said that in the last 10 years, 99 new line projects worth Rs 60,000 crore were sanctioned out of which only one project is complete till date. In fact, there are 4 projects that are as old as 30 years, but are still not complete for one reason or another.

Significantly, Congress Floor Leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who happens to be Sadanand Gowda’s immediate predecessor kept silent throughout the speech. UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi also did not respond to the critical references.

Gowda further blamed the UPA government for the lack of rational approach. He said that Passenger fares were kept lower than costs, thus causing loss in the passenger train operations. This loss kept on increasing from 10 paise per passenger km in 2000-2001 to 23 paise in 2012-13 as the passenger fares were kept low always. On the other hand, freight rates were revised periodically and kept high in order to compensate the losses sustained in passenger sector resulting in freight traffic getting diverted consistently. Also the share of the railways in freight traffic came down consistently in the last 30 years.

He said, “If this trend is allowed to continue, many more thousands of crore will get spent yielding hardly any returns.”

Talking about the priority given by the Modi government, he pointed out that it is investment in doubling and tripling to decongest the over-utilised network, which brings money to Railways. On the other hand, construction of new lines, most of the times do not even meet operational cost as there is no commensurate demand.

In the last 10 years, Indian Railways made an investment of over Rs 41,000 crore in laying 3738 km of new lines. On the other hand, it spent only about Rs 18,400 crore for doubling of 5050 km though it was a priority for the health of the system.

Gowda said that he did not understand it till he learnt about the facts. “It is unheard of a business that has a monopoly that has nearly 125 crore customer base that has 100 per cent sale on advance payment, but still starved of funds,” he remarked.