Committee for inaction

Key transport solutions are obvious

Acommittee has been appointed under Rakesh Mohan, former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, to devise a framework for a national transport development policy, keeping in mind the requirements of the next two decades and emerging technological trends. Its aim will be to create an environment that encourages competitive pricing and coordination between alternative modes of transport. It will also assess the investments required in different transport sectors like road, rail, air and shipping, and identify the role of the states and the private sector in meeting emerging needs. The committee will look at the resource-versus-cost scenario and suggest policy correctives to set right deviations from the optimum. The aim will be not so much to suggest ways of using multimodal options to meet logistical needs as to look at why particular modes of travel, like the railways, have not developed as well as they should have given the implied costs. The final objective of the committee is to suggest policy measures to help marry competitive costs to development.

Dr Mohan is particularly well equipped to lead such an effort in view of his academic strengths, administrative skills and earlier experience in conducting studies in areas stretching across sectors like infrastructure. But the question is whether the best way to tackle an issue is to appoint a committee to look into it. This is particularly so after the recent experience of the fate of the recommendations of yet another committee on ways to rectify the flaws in energy pricing. It seems that no action will be taken on this score just now. So, the best signal that there is reluctance to do what needs to be done is to appoint a committee to study the issue. There is a paucity of data in India in almost any given field and a committee with as high-powered a representation as the present one should be able to meet this deficit up to a point. Knowledge of actual traffic flows and costs for different modes of transport is vital in taking informed decisions on them.

That apart, it can be argued that the basic issues in the transport sector are already clear. High logistical costs in India result from inadequate capacity, poor delivery and governance. For example, rail transportation is both cost-effective and energy-efficient but capacity is inadequate. This has led to the relatively rapid growth in road transport. The latter itself can do much better but for the fact that trucks take inordinately long to complete journeys because of delays at border check posts. Then goods that go by rail and road can go by waterways a lot more cheaply but that can only happen if inland waterways are beefed up and key links are completed. Similarly, exports of flowers can get a boost if refrigeration along the supply chain is improved and dedicated cargo flights are promptly available. If the government really meant business (taking quick, practical steps to make a difference), it could have done what it had a long time ago under Rajiv Gandhi — put a senior minister in overall charge of transport and place under him ministers of state for different modes like road, rail and shipping. This will immediately improve coordination. But to get this done, you don’t need a committee, you need to simply get on with what obviously needs doing.