Time for radical reform, yes? In 1920-21 it comes in the shape of the Acworth Committee recommendation package, which includes: Separation of the Rail Budget from the General.  Creation of a Railway Board and a Financial Commissioner, who could rid the railways of the Finance Ministry bureaucrats and take an independent call. As was the best practice, back then with other networked nations such as the USSR and Japan.

Cut to 2016 February.

The Railways carries what 30-35 % of freight traffic today. More often demanding from the Union Budget rather than being a massive contributor to either that or the GDP. A back of the envelope calculation of the oil, steel sector or any of the Maharatna PSU would have greater volume of sale and revenue. Not to mention, banks with a large asset base. But do they get a budget of their own?

Look at it any which way and it makes no sense. If you use large employer logic, then defence would be second, right? As per the India Railway Act, an administrative order can be issued to increase price of tickets, or announcement of new projects by public notices. The public gets to know, always. No parliamentary approval is required by the Rail Bhavan folks, unless projects are above a certain value. So much like defence allocation, which can get a large chunk of the Consolidated Fund of India, in the Union Budget, why not just subsume the Railways in it?

But these are all relatively sane economic arguments you might say and you might be right. For the mask changes when it comes to Bharatiya netagiri. What bhashanbaazi would be possible if it were to become a mere technicality? How else would MPs do some grandstanding on TV to show they speak for their constituency? There are many reasons politicos covet this ministerial berth clearly. Prabhu may have broken from the Union Railway Ministers of the recent past by not redirecting rail routes to his political constituency, but even he wanted parliamentary TV time. Now add Twitter time to that.

Will 2016 be any different? It is quite clear that this is a colonial hangover which is completely out of context with today’s economic realities. The railways remains a public service, which has to carry political expediency, passenger expectations and more freight, for it to be financially stable. And the last two of this, can easily be bullet points in the Union Budget announcement. It would still be public, accessible in the fine print and would take away the false opportunity for political grandstanding. Even the tweets on this could just be part of the #unionbudget hashtag if media time is what politicos want.

This is a jumla which precedes this government, but the current powers that be can always wake up.