I was therefore happy to see the announcement by Mamata Banerjee in her railway budget on Friday that “Fifty railway stations would be developed as world-class stations with international level passenger amenities through innovative financing and in public private partnership mode.” The adoption of the PPP mode is welcome because the traditional departmental way of implementing modernisation projects can only yield pathetic results.

Imagine what would have happened if the modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, or the development of greenfield airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad, had been left to the care of the Airports Authority of India. Also, imagine what would have happened to the Delhi Metro if it had been subjected to the usual departmental mode of implementation rather than being given to a separate corporation under a dynamic leader like E. Sreedharan.

Out-of-the-box thinking is also necessary for accomplishing other major tasks before Indian Railways. For example, Banerjee articulated an important national concern when she decried the government’s traditional approach of either abandoning or under-funding many railway expansion projects because they are considered “economically unviable”.

Taking note of the fact that MPs from all parts of the country want new projects, more budget provisions and existing projects to be expedited in their states and constituencies, she asked: “Should railway projects be measured only on the scale of ‘economic viability’ or do we also need to look at their ‘social viability’? Are the fruits of development to be restricted only to a privileged few and not to the teeming populations in remote and backward areas of our country?” She has promised to present a blueprint, based on the recommendations of an experts’ committee, for innovative financing and implementation of the so-called economically unviable but socially desired projects in the coming five years.

... contd.