Railway Budget 2010 seems to have missed the opportunity yet again ! India Inc appears to hold a mixed response to this budget, by lauding it for not adding to inflation burden (as the freight rates unchanged), and complaining that real modernization, of probably India’s most promising transportation system, is undermined.
One can sense from this Budget that there seems to be a finance crunch effecting the ambitions of Indian Railways. On the performance front, the PSUs owned by the railways, many of them almost monopolies in their respective businesses, have collectively shown a poor performance in the last fiscal. In spite of a 15 percent increase in revenues (YOY), the net profits of these companies have crumbled by 32 percent.
The small surplus that the Railways has cobbled up is plainly due to the tinkering with the depreciation reserve fund. The operating ratio (94.5 for 2009-10) of the Railways has worsened over the budgeted figures and remains at unreasonable levels.
Many countries, who have had comparable level of Railway Infrastructure not very long ago, are already fast chugging into modernization and capacity up-gradation. Unfortunately, our feeble initiative in this direction remains embroiled in the politics of regional agendas and myopic vision of development.
India’s largest Public Sector Enterprise is definitely not living up to its promises.
No comments:
Post a Comment