Necessary evils

If Railways needs to fill vacancies; cooking fuel subsidy is difficult to scrap

The Indian Railways’ plan to fill up 132,646 vacancies and the rising subsidy cost of cooking fuel may be two unrelated developments but they are both expected to impact the government and railway finances this year. The reason for the government not ignoring either of them, or deciding to go forward with railway recruitment and subsidise cooking fuel has a lot to do with the 2019 elections. Offering government jobs is a sure-shot way of ensuring popularity, while keeping cooking stoves lit at controlled prices helps in insulating a huge swathe of consumers from high oil prices even while the