[fultoo_bakar]

Originally Posted by nisha_mehta

Hi All

It was really nice to read views of ppl.
Here are my views on the issue.

* A number of trains were upgraded to Super fast. This helps in charging more from passengers. Due to this travel time was reduced & thus coaches of these trains were used as extra coaches(which helped in reducing cost for extra coaches...refer my previous point).

As far as my knowledge goes the upgradation was only in terms of the names of the trains and not in terms of speed. So the questions of reduced turnaround time does not even arise. Moreover, this led to extra burden on the passengers without the incentives.

Originally Posted by nisha_mehta

* Currenlty railways are building new type of AC Coaches which will have more seats in AC 2 tier & 3 tier. Hence in future they will be able to carry more passangers.

I am not too sure of viability of garib rath which has been introduced recently. The price is 66% below the price of current 3 tier. The railways is head on with the aviation route.
So the increase in AC seats will not do any good untill they improve the track and increase the maximum speed. The 1300 km Delhi-Mumbai route is covered with dismal avg speed of 75km/hr for rajdhani Ex as against 200km/hr in other developing nations, not to forget these fig are for one of the fastest trains of india and i have not yet mentioned the bullet trains which are near impossible for india's crippled infrastructure.

so it all boils down to freight when the revenues are considered. I shall continue in my next post.

[nisha_mehta]

Hi

I did some googling on turn around of railways.
Got a report by an IIM A professor on the same.
Hope it will be helpful...

cheers!!
nisha

[fultoo_bakar]

Originally Posted by nisha_mehta

Hi All

* I don't think the so called turnaround of IR is fake. Profits of 20K crores can't be fake. Though i don't give full credits of turaround to Lalu as there are lot of people behind turn around of IR. I think lalu was lucky to be Railway Minister when this turnaround happens.

With India Inc registering massive growth in the last fiscal not to forget over 50% growth in real extate, Indian railways will have their share of pie. This does suffice the increase in profits by transporting cement and steel both being essential pillars of construction.
But have we adressed the competition the Indian railways is facing from Road and aviation route, or have we just celebrated the surge in profits. These profits are temporary, but whats permanent is infrastructure led profits.

Originally Posted by nisha_mehta

*For Railways Freight Transport is bread while Passenger Tranport is butter. So major reason of turnaround was due to increase in load of Iron ore, Cement and others. Iron ore & cement accounts for major share. They increased the load in each bogie. Currently railways is building new axles which can carry more load. So in future we i can see more profits in this area.

The talks of dedicated freight corridors have been intiated because of poor turnaround times of goods trains. Here railways have intense competition with the road transport despite the latter being expensive.
source:The Hindu
A goods train take 3-4 days as against 1.5 day by the trucks(again the data is for delhi-mumbai). Again i have not even touched the hurculean task of transporting perishable goods which again seems impossible, the reason "Infrastucture bottlenecks".

By the way i think you forgot to mention the container service being introduced.

[jenovah]

It is for sure that Laloo has a very little role for improvement of the Indian Railways. The only credit which Laloo should be given is of managing the top brass of railway officers nicely, rest it is his good luck that such improvements in indian railway has taken during his tenure.

Now, Enough has been discussed regarding the Laloo's role in the progress of indian railways. Lets discuss something regarding the privatisation of Indian railways.

There are two main aspects that need to be discussed regarding privatisation
1)Is privatisation really necessary for Indian railways?
2)If yes , then wat will be the consequences of this privatisation?

Here, are a few of my point regarding privatisation, expecting a few from you

Railways play a very integral role in the development of India(for both, economically and transportability),
so the privatisation of railways should be done with great care, it should not be in the similar pattern of
British Railways. A few points that should be taken care of before going for privatisation
*Proper plan for carrying out privatisation.
*a regulatory authority for the same.

It would be better if the particular sections of the railways get privatised instead of privatising it completely. Particular department like transportation of goods, security and catering can be privatised, it can thus be used
for generating more funds; where as departments responsible management of infrastructure, management of railways property should be sustained with goverment . Apart from these there should be regulatory authority
that would keep an eye over the performence of the sectors that are being privatised.

In this may privatisation might be useful for Indian Railway

[ourfriendfinder]

thats right.. for indian railway reservation and time table visit <snip>

[brucevarughese]

Originally Posted by riverbreeze

No

because

We can see that profits can grow without privatisation.....
So .....
It is only that people keep working for it....

Profits only exists within private entity. This suggests that there is a level of privatization within this "public" facade.

RECENT improvement was funded BECAUSE THE CONTAINER SERVICES was PRIVATIZED and made a shitload of money. It's no wonder that the container service is nearing world class status, while the rest of the railways is in "process".

My suggestion is to completely privatize... everything.

Everything in India that is decent is privatized. Everything that can second as a toilet is owned by the government.

It's true.

Delhi Metro anyone?

[lordsom]

I still cannot fathom, how "Job Security(JS)" acts as a confidence builder and motivator in private sector and at the same time create an ignorant, unhelpful, lax, indifferent worker in a public sector(especially the railways)

Due to JS, they think they can do whtever they want, whenever they want!

Even i want privatisation of railways, provided the process is completely transparent and no new scam arises....