INDIAN RAILWAYS NO MORE A POOR MAN'S BOON ?

                          

                                             The backbone of transportation for 1.4 Billion Indians is the Indian Railways (IR). You can understand the importance of Railways in India when you come to know that India had a separate budget session in the parliament which is only for meant for Railways till 2016.

• Indian Railways is the world's largest commercial employer, giving employment for more than 1.7 million people.
• IR handles over 75,000 lakh passengers every year.

                                                 IR is the boon for poor people in the country for transportation as it is cheap and safe. Specifically, the general(Non AC) coaches in the railways are more affordable and mostly used by the poor and middle class sections of the society which forms the majority of the Indian population.

REDUCTION OF GENERAL COACHES AND INCREASE IN AC COACHES IN THE TRAINS:

                                                 Recently, the number of unreserved, sitter and sleeper coaches in the trains are drastically reduced by IR department. Consequently, the number of AC coaches in the trains are increased. This issue raised severe concerns to the majority population of India who are dependent on the Non AC coaches for travel. This issue is addressed by several political parties also. The backbone of transportation of the majority Indians is under a big threat. These points are from people's point of view.

RAILWAYS UNDER A BIG CRISIS:

                                                The authorities point of view has a different story. The major issue is that IR is under a huge financial crisis.

• IR spends Rs.107 to earn every Rs.100 in 2021-22.
• Employee's salary, Pension, Capital investments for new trains and new tracks, fuel charges etc are primely contributing to the expenditures of the IR
• Ticketless journeys, subsidies, trains to less demand routes, Covid 19 lockdowns are the other major contributors for the crisis.
• All the other coaches except AC coaches has recorded negative income all over the years.

                                                 These are the prime reasons for the financial crisis in IR. So it's not fair to simply blame the authorities. 

CONCLUSION:

                                           It is important for the IR to think about other sources of income such as ads and allowing private investment for a short time(only at worst case) to compensate the financial crisis. But it is not fair to decrease the number of general coaches at any cost which will directly affect the mass population of India. The government should take immediate and serious steps to stabilize the railways. Increase of fare should also be severely avoided at the worst case.......