Nitish Kumar worked wonders with the railways as their minister; in this column of 26 February 2004, I asked him to introduce a luxury class and take away passengers from airlines. He left before he could do that.
A poor man’s
airline
There was a time when we traveled by
train every time we went far. People cooked specially for train trips. It was
on a journey from Poona to Bombay that I wore my first trousers. It was about
the arm of a girl seen on the train that I wrote my first poem. Every station
had something to look forward to: Madras had its Higginbotham’s, Lonavla meant
chiki. Outside the stations were ranks for tongas, distinguished by the channel
that ran down them to carry horse piss.
Then came the
airlines, and we abandoned the railways. It need not have happened. Railway
stations are far more conveniently located than airports; if only the railways
had taken the competition seriously, they would have coped easily. Their
biggest mistake was ticketing. One could book an air ticket through any travel
agent; one had to go to the railway station to book a ticket. Later, I believe
the railways allowed tickets to be booked through some travel agents. But they
were few and far between; and many were reluctant to go and get a ticket.
Presumably the commission was too low.
Then, a few
years ago, I wondered if I had missed out on something by abandoning trains.
But I was not prepared to make a long trip; it took too much time. So when I
went to Bombay, I went and took a local train. I was standing near the door. A
fellow passenger told me to retreat further inside; he said some station was
coming. I did not understand him. But being a polite person, I obeyed him. As
the train arrived, there was an avalanche of passengers trying to enter. Maybe
because there was not room for everyone, maybe because passengers entering at
that station were going far and wanted to grab seats, but the rush was such
that if I had been near the door, I would have been trampled underneath. That
was my last train trip.
I could afford
to forget trains because most of my trips were paid for. There must have been
many who paid for their trips, who took their families on holidays or mothers
on pilgrimages. If they were rich enough to travel first class, they would have
changed over to airlines. When George Fernandes was minister of railways, back
in the 1970s, he raised first-class fares to the level of air fares; since then
they have been little below air fares. But then there were millions who were
not rich; for them the three-tier second class was the most affordable option.
Now, however,
with the arrival of Deccan Airways, air fares are coming down to compete with
air-conditioned second class. If cheap airlines spread, they will slice off the
better paying passengers from the railways. And the railways will be left with
plain third-class passengers. Their fares are far below cost; so the more of
them the railways carry, the worse off they will be. And they are not alone.
With them travel many more kar sevaks, migrant workers, hawkers, touts and
hooligans who pay nothing at all. These days, the poor ticket checker is no
match for the riff-raff found on the railways; so a high proportion of the
passengers pays no fare at all.
Even without
Deccan Airways, the railways would have been in dire trouble. Railway ministers
have three objectives. One is to make money. Another is to get their supporters
employed in the railways. And the third is to keep second-class fares low. So
train fares have been below cost, and have been subsidized by freight. That
makes freight expensive; as a result, the railways had steadily lost freight to
trucks for decades. The only freight they got was bulk traffic – minerals,
steel, coal, cement.
Then, after
Nitish Kumar came, something changed. The railways improved their service, and
started taking away freight from trucks. As a result, the railways began to
make a profit, while the truck industry experienced a prolonged slump. This
year, though, the slump in truck production has ended. Does that mean that
railways are losing their competitiveness?
I do not know.
But now that Nitish has worked wonders with freight, he should try and attract
passengers like me. He should introduce safe, comfortable, hassle-free upper
class travel, at fares below those of Deccan Airways, in the railways. Georgian
socialism is buried, the NDA has no compunction about courting the well-off.
India is shining; why not railways?
