It's a growth-oriented Budget

Business Standard / New Delhi July 4, 2009, 0:23 IST

COMMENT: VK Aggarwal, Former Chairman, Railway Board

Overall, the Budget was reasonably good. It tried to take people from all walks of life into consideration. It was growth oriented, most importantly it tried to get support from the central government, which is necessary.

It is essential to realise the importance of capacity development in Indian Railways, since this will directly influence the growth of not only the Indian Railways but also the economy. There should have been a little more pressure from the minister in terms of development.

At this time what is needed is free flow of traffic and expansion of capacity. In the past few years, roadways have grown over seven times in capacity, while railways traffic has only grown by just over 2.5 per cent. In the next few years, the traffic on the road will increase multi fold and the railway have to be equipped to provide a supplementary service as well.

For this, there is need to construct more lines and more dedicated freight corridors than what was given in the Budget today. Since these will not have much commercial viability, the rail minister gets additional input of about Rs 20,000 crore over the next 10 years to fund expansion plans. Rs 5,000 crore that has been allocated by the finance ministry is not enough.

More emphasis also has to be made on financing options for the Indian Railways, for which the expert committee should be formed as fast as possible.