India Inc's big guns on panel to modernise Indian Railways

NEW DELHI: Indian Railways, under fire for its shoddy finances and rising accidents, has formed a committee comprising big guns from the corporate world and other experts to advise it on how can modernise its operations.

The committee consists of HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, IDFC boss Rajiv Lal, Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman of Feedback Infrastructure Services Ltd and Ranjan Jain, adviser (Infrastructure) in the Railway Board. Chaired by technocrat Sam Pitroda, this panel will focus on areas such as modernisation of tracks, signaling systems, rolling stock, increasing capacities, reviewing projects and also address public-private partnership issues.

Last week, the railways formed a panel on safety headed by the former Atomic Energy Commission chairman, Anil Kakodkar and comprising Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan to suggest ways to manage the growing traffic and recommend safety measures.

The Indian Railways had a dismal record of one accident in every 2.5 days in 2010-11. Its finances have also steadily deteriorated over the years, diving to a paltry Rs 75 lakh last year from Rs 13,431 crore in 2008. Since 2009, the railways had formed as many as seven committees to improve its state of affairs, but they have not achieved much. But experts say the induction of illustrious people with vast experience in diverse sectors as advisers can only help the railways.

Abhaya Agarwal, executive director at Ernst and Young, said a committee comprising Pitroda and Parekh could help generate the right political will necessary for implementing reforms and addressing sticky issues like fare revision. “Ideas created by a committee will help in attracting attention of the PMO and other government arms,” said Agarwal, who leads the public-private partnership (PPP) practice at E&Y.