By Sreekumar Raghavan
Some of you might have noticed in the Railway Budget Speech that Mamata Banerjee has thanked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the beginning of the speech. In fact, it was Manmohan Singh who reminded her a few months back when she raised issues about being not informed of PM's visit to Bengal to meet the then ailing CPM leader Jyoti Basu and when Finance Minister inaugurated two projects in West Bengal at the invitation of the government that she must rise above petty politics and look at the problems facing the railways.

In fact, what Manmohan Singh said in a note to Mamata Banerjee seems to give the undertone to her speech presented to Parliament on Wednesday. Our rail infrastructure is so insignificant by world standards. "Our route kilometre which was 53,596 kms in 1950 has gone up to only 64,015 kms, adding just 10,419 kms, an annual average of only 180 kms. Looking at the world, you find that both developed and developing nations are spending hundreds of billions of dollars each year, adding more and more route- kilometres of new lines. This is why we have to move faster, to connect peoples and places across this nation," she said.

Mamata Banerjee has come out with a Vision 2020 plan which envisages to add 25000 route kilometres to our existing network. There are other things that PM reminded Mamata some time back-- the average speed of our fastest train-Shatabdi Express is only 80 km per hour but in other countries, trains run at a speed of 240 km per hour.

"Railway planning is not guided by a clear vision of where the Railways should be 10 to 20 years from now. It should fix specific targets," Manmohan Singh was reported to have reminded her. And perhaps, that has given rise to the Vision 2020 that Mamata unveils now. So now you know why Mamata has thanked the Prime Minister for his 'wise counsel'.

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In the run up to the Railway Budget, the media rightly predicted that Mamata would present an 'aam aadmi' budget in view of the elections in West Bengal next year. But looking at the budget speech there isn't much of a populist appeal except for keeping freight and passenger fares unchanged apart from the several welfare measures announced. But what is quite striking is the Rs 10,000 cr to Rs 20,000 cr that she aims to raise in one year to augment route kilometres by 1000 and the talk of industry linkages is sure to keep India Inc happy. But bottlenecks remain with respect to procedural and administrative hurdles which desist investors from investing in railway projects which was brought out admirably in a recent ASSOCHAM report.

What is perhaps remarkable about Mamata Banerjee who is often accused of induling in petty politics is the fact that her white paper on railways pointed out an obvious anamoly with respect to accounting practices and instead of double entry book-keeping, "The system of railway accounts dates back to the middle of the 19th century, when the distinction between the revenue and the capital accounts was unknown. The railways are, of course, a highly capital-intensive industry; railwaymen can hardly pretend not to have any assets. They make elaborate inventories of rolling stock and stock that does not roll; every chair in a station bears a unique number. Those numbers for assets are entered into enormous stock books and checked off every once in a while. But they spend their lives outside the account books," the Business World reported in January.

The misrepresentations arising from the exclusion of assets and liabilities are all the more serious in the case of railways, whose assets last for decades. The railways are still using wagons over three decades old; investment made in the 1970s is contributing to their earnings today.Hence, a cash-based accounting system is obsolete and misleading, and the railways need to change over to double-entry accounting, BusinessWorld added.

Why is it that Indian Railways has gone on a slow track despite having a legacy which extends to more than 150 years since the first line was commissioned between Mumbai and Thane. May be it was the 'aam aadmi' approach. When you are take this approach, all that is needed is a tinkering with social relief measures as has been announced by Mamata in plenty in this budget and not raise passenger revenue. But infrastructure will lie neglected. It took us more than five decades for us to realise we are on a slower track compared to other countries.

She also talks about connectivity and inclusive growth that Railways should usher in for which she has spent some energy for the North Eastern region. We should thank Mamata and PM for bringing to light the inadequacies of our railway system. May be we should work harder in the next decade to make the Vision 2020 a reality. May be Mamata is not the person cut out for this job.

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