Suresh Prabhu, the new railways minister, has clear focus on to revive the Indian Railways. First the opening up of the railways to foreign investment will obviously be a big opportunity, but it will be a bigger challenge.
Past efforts at getting even the Indian private sector to set up facilities for the Indian Railways have failed to make much headway. The existing mindset of those who manage the Indian Railways is such that new initiatives coming from outside the railway system are not welcome.
Prabhu not only needs to save the railways from the clutches of bureaucracy and politics but also attract foreign investment to revive the once potent force.He was expected to face with an incredible number of urgent matters across various ongoing projects of the railways, of the precarious financial position, of dwindling standards, so on and so forth.
The objectives that Prabhu has been tasked with are multifold: to provide a safe and reliable transportation service with basic amenities at reasonable price, provide adequate and reasonable freight transportation as a backbone of the Indian economy, to grow with the population growth and economic growth, to leap from a transportation speed of an average 40km per hour to 200km per hour.
Lastly, to be profitable without unreasonably burdening the consumer.The monolithic structure of the railways makes it impossible to make sustainable changes to achieve these objectives.
India Honest agrees that Prabhu has still plenty of elbow room to undertake a complete overhaul of the Indian Railways. While though he is not a grassroots politician and may not be playing to the tune of gallery.
But the gradual efficiency he has been able to show in this short span of time has made the travellers at last "feel happy with surprise" as seen in the Pankaj Sharma's comment on his royal experience. Thanks to Prabhu for justifying his selection by Narendra Modi,as Railway minister against much of the odd circumstances.
Vivek Shetty : Yes now one can say, Indian Railway is shining.