Railway Budget 2015: Suresh Prabhu’s scorching pace in his speech portends well for the Railways

If his intention is to be judged by his speech, Union railways minister Suresh Prabhu clearly seems to intend follow-through on his promise to increase the speed of trains running at 110-130 kmph to 160-200 kmph. Though his maiden railway budget speech was but five minutes longer than his predecessor Sadananda Gowda’s at 67 minutes, it can be deemed significant that the minister maintained a bullet train-like speed, clocking an astounding average of 133 words per minute.

It isn’t certain whether this was an attempt to blaze through what some people might consider a rather long, tedious exercise. And while he may have consciously punned on his name when wondering “Hey Prabhu, how can this be done” in the context of hiking capacity in the high-density section, his parliamentary and television audience must have had the same thought about his ability to sustain that superfast pace through 8,926 words.

It was providential that the minister’s self-deprecating humour — including the assertion that he would be one of the senior citizens to benefit from their increased lower-berth quota — provided several welcome breathers. Otherwise, listeners would have been winded by his breakneck speed, considering he did not even heed the frantic signals from fleet-fingered social media veterans to slow down.