The suggestion to privatise the Railways by the federal finance secretary is bound to draw public criticism. Regardless of how unfeasible; expensive; dangerous (at times) and even, in functional terms, unpopular the organisation will get, it is still the peoples railways. The emotive resonance of the railways might not touch a chord with the metropolitan demographic that is reading this, except, perhaps, amongst the elder lot. But to the masses of the smaller towns and the peripheries, the organisation is very central to the social fabrics response to rapid urbanisation and economic migration.
But the issue is not just about the railways in particular but about the whole ambit of privatisation in general. What is off bounds, what isnt? It is not the business of the state to be in business but what is it, then? What is it that states are supposed to provide? Should education and health be outsourced completely as well? Because no matter how efficiently the two are managed, they will keep taking up resources. Where do governments draw the line? The police? The army?
In the case of the railways itself, things were not always as bleak. Even then, as now, the fares that were charged were not nearly enough to sustain the network. The real money came in from freighting cargo goods, of which grain was a significant part. When the cocktail of shortsightedness and ulterior interests prompted the Zia regime to start the NLC to freight grain, the railways lost a significant part of its revenue, making it generally impossible to manage well without, of course, raising the fares. Across the border in India, there was recently a time when the government was toying with the prospect of disinvestment in the railways. After the turnaround brought by Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, it was not only back on its feet but also turned out a modest profit, all without raising fares. The PIA flies to commercially unviable destinations for a purpose. The railways subsidises, in effect, the ticket prices for a purpose. It is the very same purpose that states do what they do. The incumbent government and its successors might be in a pickle over the railways now but it is important to delineate the narrative to see what actually went wrong.
