The Indian Railways has never had it so good. So it would seem going by the images of sleek bullet trains, ‘Vande Bharat’ express trains, Vistadome coaches and ‘airport standard’ remodelled stations that usually accompany railway-related news these days, the periodic reports about record-breaking capital investments, historically high originating freight loading, and, thankfully, the historically lower number of accidents. Paradoxically, this feel-good image makeover is also accompanied by a deafening silence on crucial policy issues, especially those that concern the financial health and the future management architecture of the Indian Railways.
Precarious financial health
Despite the recent strictures passed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (C&AG) for attempting to airbrush the financial statistics of 2019-20 and 2020-21, in order to project that the Indian Railways is in the black, attempts continue to window dress the financial statistics. Thus, in the revised estimates for 2021-22, against a pension outgo of ₹52,500 crore, the appropriation to the pension fund is restricted to ₹49,000 crore. If the full outgo was reflected in the appropriation to the pension fund, the nominal ‘surplus’ of ₹875 crore would turn into a deficit of ₹2,375 crore, in turn landing the Indian Railways in the red.
