Travel musings!

Train journeys seem to be a little boring, especially if one has to travel in the evenings too! Sitting in a 'Super-fast express', you wonder whether it is inching ahead like a snail and at times, even a snail appears faster!! Co-passengers who are glued to their mobiles, murmuring either soft or cold words, rattling sound of the (ill-functioning) air-conditioner, constant jitters which keep reminding me again and again that I were travelling across the rural lands of our mighty country!!!

There are a few countries in the world where they take pride in running super express trains (The lightning fast Shinkansens of Japan or the TGVs of France) whereas in our country, Our railway babus don't want to operate trains even at moderately higher speeds! It's high time they learn some basic calculations that faster you travel (in safer tracks :) ), sooner you reach your destination (of course at a higher cost). Time saved == Money (in simple terms). Ignorant of this, our babus and netas don't want to make the initial investment, though it is huge to start with (Is money a constraint at all?)

The whole of Indian Railways (touted as World's largest employer, which I would re-word as World's largest employer of least efficient people) needs to be stripped and built from scratch, which I am sure, our netas and babus will never do. The need of the hour is to slowly introduce corporatisation as it has been done to BSNL and many other energy PSUs. At least, to start with, private operators could be allowed to run scheduled trains, in similar lines to private airlines. Little do we have to reiterate, how the public sector carriers AI and IA have improved their efficiencies after competition was introduced in Airlines. Competition is the key word! Competition ensures better service to the customer and improved efficiency. I am sure, private Indian companies like Reliance, Tatas would be ready to foray (given the frequent Indian rail traveller, and the need of the hour for better service from the railways, private train service providers stand to gain even during the initial stages) in this lucrative market, but over-regulation by government regarding pricing, licensing etc might kill the golden goose again! At least in the next 10 years, I wish something on these lines to happen, so that Railways properly utilise the additional capacity.