Rlys may use UID to subsidise the poor

Last week,the Railways had raised freight rates for key commodities like coal,iron ore,steel,cement and sugar to make up for the gap between escalating expenditure and stagnant revenues.

In the last seven years,the Railways has increased freight rates at regular intervals but the passenger segment remained untouched due to political priorities of the concerned ministers. As a result,passenger fare-to-freight ratio has fallen to 0.3 compared with 1.2 in China.

But now,the Railways wants to use UID number scheme of the government,called Aadhaar,to increase passenger fares while giving concessions to the poor. The UID will be used as an instrument to identify people living below poverty line (BPL) and sell cheaper tickets to them.

“We have had a meeting with UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani recently and decided to use the scheme to provide targeted concessions to the poor. The idea is to recover a higher sum from the rich and give benefits to the poor,” a senior official in the railway ministry told FE requesting anonymity.

However,hiking the charges will take some time as the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has just started rolling out the numbers. A few cards were distributed in the tribal village of Tembhli in Maharashtra on September 29. The Railways also has to devise a mechanism to identify BPL people as UID card does not contain information on salary of a person,which defines his BPL status.

We are talking to other departments of the government to ascertain what could be done to easily identify BPL people. One way is to put a sign like a flag on the card of BPL persons. Different ideas are being floated,” the official said.

The Railways expects to miss this year’s target to reduce operating ratio to 92.3% from 95.3% in the previous year. Its expenditure till November exceeded the target by Rs 1,300 crore and revenue fell short by Rs 1,100 crore.

In the quest of bettering its financial position,the Railways had sought dividend waiver for five years. However,finance ministry refused the request and instead asked for an increase in passenger fares to make a logical realisation of Rs 14,000 crore. Planning Commission is also pitching for setting up of an independent regulator to change freight rates and passenger fares.