the suggestion that Railways should raise 25 per cent fare to meet the cost of modernisation needs rethinking. People should ask whether the committee considered the role of a) reducing procurement cost, b) did it look at the dynamics of vendor selection in tenders above 1000 crores, to ensure that we allow new cost efective vendors to bid fairly, b) innovations made to reduce unit cost by developing new materials, involving technology youth on platforms like techepdia.in or any other and c) re-look at the locational criteria of various railway infrastructure which is often done to pelase political masters rather than optimise the outcomes. Hopefully, parliament will discuss these ideas before letting railways use easier and intellectually lazy option of just increasing the fare.

Anil K Gupta