TO STOP TRAIN PULL CHAIN

Travelling from Anand to Ahmedabad on weekends during my engineering days, the train used to invariably make an unscheduled halt just before pulling into Maninagar station (the Borivali or Bandra Terminus of Ahmedabad). The reason – chain pulling. Some milk vendors (as also some bootleggers) who used to illegally cart their ware on these trains, would get off at this place simply by giving a gentle tug to the chain hanging besides a small notice which read: ‘TO STOP TRAIN PULL CHAIN’. And there it was, the grand Indian Railways used to turn into someone’s ‘baap ki jaagir’. 

Something similar happened yesterday, but this time it was not the bootleggers, it was someone from the dreaded specie called ‘politician’. It doesn’t matter that it was ‘didi’ this time (wait a minute, with all those blackmails and tantrums being thrown day in and day out, I think it does matter) because most other railway ministers who have held the portfolio before, have treated the railways exactly like that – their ‘baap ki jaagirs’. But here was a brave and sincere soul (by all means, a mutant of the specie mentioned above) going by the name Dinesh Trivedi who tried to give railways the respect that it deserves! The railway minister announced fare hike in his railway budget yesterday. Considering the increasing levels of income of not only the middle class, but across classes, the hike has been pretty small. Sample this: a hike of 5 paise per kilometer in sleeper class and 10 paise per kilometer in AC 3 tier would mean that the cost of travelling from Ahmedabad to Delhi would increase by `45 in sleeper class and by `90 in AC 3 tier. 

But, this hike being small or affordable is not the reason for me to call Mr. Trivedi sincere. It’s the justification that he has for it – railways is in pitiable condition in terms of finances. And his special emphasis is to channelize these additional funds towards making rail travel safer! Simply put, Mr. Trivedi very sincerely intends that the next time when one of us happens to travel by train, we do not end up as a mangled dead body inside a train wreck! But for that he needs money. The railways needs money. And what is the best of arranging money for your needs? You earn it. That’s exactly what Mr. Trivedi is trying to do by hiking the fares. He is trying to make railways self dependent. Alas, the likes of didi and lalu do not want that to happen. For the sake of playing populist politics, they are ok to bleed the railways. 

Honestly, I haven’t heard much about the political career of Mr. Trivedi before. But going by the sincerity with which he was saying in a post budget interview to a TV channel, that to him country and the interest of railways is above everything else, one would be compelled to ponder that there still are a few good men in the rotting political fiber of this country. I just hope and pray that any later turn of events do not prove me wrong about my sizing-up of Mr. Trivedi and his intentions. After all, politics, especially Indian politics, is a dirty game. However, as this blog is being written, it’s flashing on the news channels that Mr. Trivedi has resigned as the railways minister due to pressure from his own party (read ‘didi’).   

   

So much for trying to resist the chain pulling Mr. Railway Minister!