A hundred and thirty years ago a bright young inner-temple barrister remarks of a “customer” at the Natal Indian Congress, South Africa “..We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.” That was none other than the young MK Gandhi.
Very few that I knew of in the Railways, looked upon passengers as “customers” in any case, judging from those terrible visuals of Maha Kumbh passengers jostling in train-coaches bursting in their seams!
Many of you, who wouldn’t have noticed an innocuous footnote on your railway-ticket that reads for the last seven years... “IR recovers only 57% of cost of travel on an average.”(The percentage never changes!)
I thought I’ll structure my thoughts on Customers’ Focus on major Eight Areas: a) Customers’ Safety; b) Punctuality in Services; c) Irregularity of Services; d) Quality & Decency of Food and Linen to Customers; e) Accessibility of Railway Stations; f) Adequacy and Productivity of Human Capital; g) Cost Competitiveness in Freight and h) Ongoing and New Projects. And I’ll try and see how the Railway Budget addresses these.
I rummaged thru whatever I could lay my hands on; in the Union Budget Publications and I tried to match them with the “Eight Focus Areas” above.
(i) Customers’ safety, punctuality and regularity of services: I need not recapitulate here the unenviable track records of the Railways during the last five years. They might have been just splendid than last century, but we’re more interested in today! In summary, over the last five years, 351 persons died and 970 were injured in 200 consequential railway accidents, (source: Indian Railways). From head-on to end-on collisions, from detachments to derailments, from falling off of locomotive batteries to trains running without a loco-pilot, from botched up communications to virulent stampedes …the Railways have had it all!. Till last year we got accustomed to hearing of a certain “Kavach” Anti Collision System, sadly there’s silence in this Budget! Yet only 1,500 route-kilometres I understand are covered till now, that’s about 3% of the total! The average late-running of Vande Bharat Trains increased by 21% last year. It’s 17 minutes on average. Late running in Rajdhani trains increased by 15% last year and they are late on an average by 36 minutes (BS). (Last year’s numbers, no Maha Kumbh traffic). During 2018-19 the number of delayed trains increased by 43% ..(TOI)
But I’m lost, if I look at the actual spendings last year and the Budgets of 2025, the actuals were both around 85,000 crore last year of all safety projects, track and signalling, over-bridges, approaches, Safety Fund Transfers, etc. If add inflation the actual provision would be perhaps 4% less! Materials for repairs and maintenance are allocated 18% less than last year.
(ii) Customers’ amenities (food and linen): Whereas receipts from customers increased by 12.6% over last year (over year before last), The budget marks a further increase from him by 16% Budget Year. Against this, customers’ amenity spendings were less by 17% of Budget last year and a further 7% from actuals last year. As a consolation there’s a meagre 5% hike in Catering. Meanwhile blankets are washed just once a month, the Lok Sabha was informed recently (after 2,100 people used each).
(iii) Customers’ accessibility at Railway Stations: I couldn’t find where this item is included, but this was of specific mention by the Prime Minister in “Sugamya Bharat Mission”, years back. I’m happy that Margao Station will be getting an elevator in the Island-Platform but there’s very little sign of priority in Vasco or several other stations that I noticed.
(iv) Adequacy and productivity of human capital: The Railways recover 57% of total costs from us customers, so they claim, and they pay 42% as salaries. Good we pay for the salaries at least, but 42%? Has any industrial engineering been ever done after digitalisation and implementation of expensive projects on reengineering of operations? Even if for argument's sake that 43% “under-recoveries” were ever to be billed, the operating-ratio at current productivities would still be around 82%, add interest charges of say 20% of costs, (the percentage in the Union Budget Profile), its more than comparable air-fares! Productivity and efficiencies are the mantra!
(v) Cost competitiveness in freight: Our current logistic costs per the NCAER adds up to 15%; whereas to stay internationally competitive we should be no more than 8%. Railways would have been the answer. But I find, the receipts from freight are budgeted just 4% up from last year’s actuals. Of what service then, are the huge investments in highway-links, bridges, direct freight-corridors of trillions? Coming back to allocations, New Lines get 7% less allocation than that of last year and the allocations for the dedicated freight corridors face curtailments of 90% over last year, puzzling!
(vi) Ongoing and new projects: Press Reports indicate the 41,000 crore Udhampur-Banihal rail link and the 530 crore new Pamban Rail Bridge projects are complete and inspected, why they are not being fully commissioned is a mystery.
One last point: I see some performances mentioned by the PIB in its note in December last, for example, “Indian Railways loaded 1,473 MT of freight in 2024, achieving a 3.86% growth, with EDFC and WDFC facilitating over 72,000 train runs, but what I missed was, is it good or not that good, how much was targeted? How much is the benchmark?
The “customer” in my view as Mahatma Gandhi must have envisaged, must see actions visibly in line with directions set out in priority for him. The question is of Visibility!
And before I part, A report in the Financial Times sometime back stated Indian Railways “earned” an amount of Rs 1,377 crore from penalties on ticketless freewheelers in 3 years. This is interesting. Just imagine how much it actually must have lost then, if even 10% was actually caught!
Isn’t that an important task for the Railways?
(Binayak Datta is a finance professional)