CPM's Basudeb Acharia not impressed with rail budget

NEW DELHI: When the post-liberalization history of Indian Railways will be written, Basudeb Acharia of CPM will deserve more than a few pages. Even as the most abiding remnant of the Raj is struggling to grapple with the new economic discourse dominated by tools of public-private partnership and foreign direct investment as panacea, Acharia has been a lone ranger reminding successive railway ministers not to chase profit alone but also look at social responsibility.

Year after year on the day of railway budget, Acharia's is the most sought after reaction. On Wednesday, even before his party had firmed up its reaction, Acharia had read the fine print. No longer a part of the standing committee on railways - he had to move out in 2009 when Mamata Banerjee became railway minister and insisted he should not be part of it -- Acharia was critical of Mallikarjun Kharge's budget.

"We expected rail budget will take steps to overcome the financial crisis. There is nothing in it. PPP has also not worked in the railways," he said, adding that the idea behind an independent freight regulatory authority was to reduce cross-subsidy which would burden the common man.

Nine-term Lok Sabha MP Acharia's association with railways predates formation of the ministry's standing committee in 1993. Acharia, part of the thin opposition of 1984, was made a member of Railway Convention Committee in 1985 on which he remained till 1989. Later, he was a member of the consultative committee on railways and even special invitee to it. In 1993 when the standing committee was formed and Somnath Chatterjee was made chairperson, Acharia was drafted in as member. In 1996, Acharia was made the chairperson and again in 2004 when UPA came to power.

"I was chairperson for seven years," he said. Acharia admitted his interest in railways was more than academic. "Railways is not a commercial venture and cannot be run on the principle of simple profit and loss. It has a huge social purpose," he said. Acharia's fear is that rapid privatization of railway operations is not helping: Its market share has not increased; revamping of tracks is hampered and operating ratio is declining.