Railway finances on a shaky track after a sharp cut in budgetary support

The cut during third successive year raises serious doubts about the national transporter's ability to meet its massive modernisation and expansion plans

“Indian Railways can run even without budgetary support,” Railway minister Piyush Goyal said. Predictably, the statement raised many eyebrows. Evidently, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley agreed with him. Soon after, the Union Budget slashed its gross budgetary support (GBS) for the current financial year (2017-18) by Rs 150 billion and allocated just Rs 531 billion for 2018-19 against a Budget Estimate of Rs 550 billion in the last Budget. This is the third year in a row that the government has lowered the GBS for the Railways.

The bottom line: the Railways will have to depend on its own resources —