The white paper (official position statement) on organisational, operational and financial performance of the railways, presented in Parliament today, busted former railway minister Lalu Prasad’s claims of raking in record profits during his 2004-09 stint.
The document says changes made in accounting norms during the last five years had inflated ‘cumulative cash surplus before dividend’ by a whopping 55 per cent to the claimed Rs 88,669 crore. If payouts for the sixth pay commission demands on an accrual basis (Rs 26,306 crore), and appropriation to the Depreciation Reserve Fund (Rs 22,952 crore) are taken into account, the figure falls to Rs 39,411 crore.
Dismissing Prasad’s claims that his regime had witnessed the financial best of the Railways, the report holds, “The best period for Indian Railways financially in the last two decades was not the last five years, but the period between 1991-96”.
In fact, it points out that if the generally accepted growth elasticity for transport of 1.25 is applied, the traffic growth performance has been “below par” for Lalu’s entire five-year period. The growth in the economy had, for the most part, fuelled growth in freight traffic. However, the railways’ contribution to the national GDP had remained stagnant at 1.18 during the period.
Still, it says several measures initiated between 2004-05 and 2008-09 such as augmentation of carrying capacity of wagons, reduction in terminal detention and increasing maintainence cycles for better asset utilisation had helped register a 14.11 per cent CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) in earnings from freight traffic. The efforts had been compounded by increases in freight rates, including a compounded increase of 44 per cent in foodgrain and 35 per cent in fertilisers.
Earnings from passenger operations show a CAGR of 10.52 per cent during the previous minister’s tenure. The report says though there had been no upward revision in general passenger fares, the earnings increased due to revision of upper-class fare structures and higher Tatkal charges.
The number of seats under the Tatkal scheme had been increased to 14.2 per cent in 2008-09 from 5.6 per cent in 2005-06. “This had the effect of reducing seat availability through the normal route, inconveniencing the public, but at the same time enhancing passenger earnings, without increasing fares.”
The white paper states the consultant who had been brought in to analyse the accounts of the railways of the past five years has suggested the financial reporting be made more transparent.
I agree lalu should be in jail, this fraud is always devising lies and beating his trumpet, but alas congress knows they need him for future, so this devil will always be safe.
It is good that by following the norms of trasparency, Union Railway Minister Mamata Bannerjee has brought out the facts about the real position of the profits earned by the railways, as against the inflated figure of record profits as projected during the tenure of Lalu Prasad Yadav as a Ralway Minister from 2004 to 2009. Now, since the facts are before the parliament, it is time, government takes appropriate steps to haul up those responsible for cooking up the figures of the inflated profits in the railways, thus putting off railway's budgetary grants.
next ly minister will be publishing a white paper to show mamata is useless as rly minister. she is trying to prove that she is better rly minister then laloo prasad. no way she can naver beat laloo prasad as rly minister. what she is doing ? allocating all the rly projects to west bengal. making urdu as a language for rly entrance test. paving way for goon and caders of tmc to be employed by rly and running rly ministry from calcutta. she claims laloo falsified rly a/cs.for falsifying satyam a/cs raju is in jail. so she should put all the rly board members and officers connected with rly budget in jail otherwise laloos budget and figures are right. pl stop running down laloo and do some constructive wok for rlys. first thing she ordered as rly minister was that bengali food be served on rajdhani express.
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