In a speech to the Lok Sabha that was punctuated not only by applause and jeers but also by some of the twinkling humour more commonly associated with her predecessor as railway minister, Mamata Banerjee laid out the direction that India’s largest single employer would take in the next year. When faced with a holdover from the distant past like the Railway Budget, the reform-minded are tempted to apply the Hippocratic Test: did it, first and foremost, “do no harm”? The answer, in this case, might depend on what part of the message you’re listening to.

One part was definitely welcome: the railway minister’s focus on making the use of the Indian railway system a less hassling experience. Adaptation to changing times and changing consumer demands is precisely the sort of effort that state-run behemoths find most difficult to do. (Frequently this goes with a questioning of the need to address end-user demands in the first place.) SMS updates for those on ticket waitlists are one such example. Another: ladies’ specials on suburban train routes, responding to the growing number of women commuters. Yet more: doctors on long-distance routes, and cold-storage facilities on board. These are all useful modifications that will draw more travellers in. And putting ticket machines in post offices, as well as upgrading woeful station infrastructure, are good directions for an organisation striving for consumer-friendliness.

There is a flip-side to this, however. And that is summarised in Banerjee’s opening remarks that “The time has come when our economists and social philosophers will have to consider that... the old mindset of economic viability should be substituted by social viability.” She then goes on to quote Indira Gandhi in full garibi-hatao avatar, hardly a “new mindset”. This is a worrying frame in which to hang the idyllic picture she drew of public-private partnerships and land banks for industry. The Railways are hardly a small fiefdom in which the rules of the market stop applying, and where dirigiste economic thinking will not have the calamitous effects it has everywhere else. The fear is that an exaggerated notion of the powers of the state — in this case, the Railways — to determine social viability causes Banerjee to look with approval on the idea that the Railways should be running medical colleges, nursing colleges and malls. Banerjee should be disabused of this apprehension before the Railways’ deteriorating health does it for her. Already, expenses are ballooning: operating ratio, which should be below 80 and was heading there under Lalu Prasad, is under pressure. Banerjee promised a comprehensive White Paper on the Railways’ direction; that too will tell her that user-friendliness is good, but central planning is very, very bad.