Panel moots Rs 5k cr railway safety cess

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Rail Budget, a committee has proposed a fresh levy on train passengers to finance the safety requirements. If accepted by railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, who has been giving conflicting signals on raising fares, this will be the second time when the railways will ask passengers to bear the burden of what is its primary responsibility.
The safety review committee, headed by former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, has highlighted the “grim financial condition” and said poor infrastructure and resources of state-owned transporter are affecting safety.
The panel recommended investment of Rs 1 lakh crore over five years for revamping railways, which included raising Rs 5,000 crore annually through a safety cess on passengers. Kakodkar seems to have borrowed the idea from Nitish Kumar, who as railway minister had levied a surcharge following a spate of accidents. The levy was removed by Lalu Prasad, citing the healthy financial position and the railways’ ability to fund modernization and safety on its own.
The committee has also suggested other funding mechanisms to meet safety needs like deferring dividend payment of Rs 5,000 crore a year and raising Rs 4,000 crore annually from commercial utilization of its land bank. Mamata Banerjee, Trivedi’s political master, has the dubious distinction of being the only railway minister to have stayed away from dividend payment. “The financial state of Indian Railways is on the brink of collapse unless some concrete measures are taken,” the committee said.
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