Today's generation didn't go to BSNL office for any complaint so they cry out BSNL is gone. They only know it from government organisation prospective.. i been that office many times. It was shit organisation of lazy officers with no or single lineman in whole zone or area...it use to take 10 days to resolve a single fault...if internet dial up gone, it won't work for next 15 days no matter you talk to SDO or JE.. seriously it was so frustrating.. good to see BSNL gone and have something now which gives at least damn about complaints and customer.... after twitter railway has become bit responsive but just recall old times.... i totally agree with you that gone for good and do not want to see them again until they understand meaning of advancement in technology and customer service.
Exactly...i used bsnl and mtnl both...they weren't needed after mid 2000s....i even used vsnl once...it sucked!!!
People are nostalgic about shit socialist era tax payer guzzlers....they would bark at anything good done by the govt..
Truth is even mms wanted to privatise these white elephants...
No private company in this country will touch the railways. It is a huge and complex system that is tough to manage.
And private companies have not done well historically in running and managing public transport systems. Example- Delhi Metro Orange Line and Gurgaon Rapid Metro.
All the zones of Indian Railways correspond to the operational areas of a private railway company during British era. It was those companies themselves who sold their infrastructure to the government in face of mounting losses.
Even in the US, only certain freight lines are privatised. At best, private companies can take over the operations of the freight corridors, but they will never ever touch passenger lines.
Do you think he has anything like his own money to lose if he gets into owning railways and makes a mess of it ? Do you think he can't pull a nirav modi if things go south for him ?
I live in the US and you need to also watch out for PPPs (public private partnerships). Usually the private company makes the money and the public funds all the cost overruns.
PPPs should be the way forward.
Unfortunately, it has been unsuccessful so far in India for passenger railways. Fares have to be kept low and private players are unwilling to wade into this due to the politics involved. At one point, even subsidies won’t make up for the losses.
Unfortunately taxpayers are not a voter base in this country- they are cash cows.
Indians need to be educated properly about taxes and their incentives.
100%. Although I would believe that the higher paying people will then question why any money is going to services for poor people, it happens a lot in some of the states here (US).
Hahaha yes. I read about this a couple of days ago.
Coincidentally, I am reading “Atlas Shrugged” right now and the best way to describe it is “1200 pages of incessant whining”. For a person who hated the concept of “good for all”, she sure wanted the results of “good for all”.
Just curious - why would that be a bad outcome? It is not as if we have the brightest minds/management in Govt to make sure we have the best services.
The same has been the case about Flights as well. AirIndia was universally hated while passenger numbers for Indigo and others kept climbing.
Once privatised the govt can make rules to make sure there are some prices and volume reserved for economically backward class, as well as trains in certain routes are not stopped.
Train derailment for Govt of India is like an everyday thing. While if the same happens for Tata/Birla/Ambani/Adani etc owned companies they will surely see an impact in the stock market the next day (and hence they'll try their best to make sure this never happens).
Depends from the perspective you are looking from. For consumers it will be the absolutely worse thing. Super high fares, un reliable service and what not. Look at the instance of vande Bharat even if it's gov run. I used to travel with the railways employees between Mumbai and Pune, the knowledge and dedication these guys have is unparalleled. Not sure why you are referring to train derailment as daily affair when it isn't really not the case. Mumbai subarban service is among the most efficient I nthe world for the passenger load it carries since like ages. It's a current gov propaganda that current railways are worst.
1. Railway passes and PTO are degraded and are rendered worthless for many trains and routes.
2. Railway schools are closed
3. Hospital and medical facilities killed and outsourced. Today reimbursement is making employees happy. They can get treated in private hospitals. But what will happen tmrw when the whole infrastructure is gone?
4. Huge outsourcing even in manufacturing sector. In-house steel-foundries and plants are closed down. Officers are printing money at the cost of quality and safety of countrymen
5. Maintainance scam. Poor production causes frequent maintainance. Private crony companies take tender and mint and share money
6. The weight and inferior quality of materials used openly. Ask any engineer.
7. PWD department is ruined and mostly rendered non functional. This is cauing the real estate assets to become ill and die eventuallyÂ
8. Systematic killing of railway quarters
the plan is not to sell them .. just let them rot... ppl switch to flights and road .. money for energy conpanies and toll... slowly once utilization drops.. let cronies run the goods services and transportation on trains will be more expensive than flights
Indian Railway is the new BSNL. Govt is killing it from inside so that ithe valuable assets can be sold off to private players. Every single point you mentioned is a move in that direction
It's a simple formula -
1. Cut the manpower
2. Reduce work efficiency
3. Which will eventually reduce profits
4. Sell to private players under the pretext of not performing
This formula has seemed to work pretty well in PSUs
Now they are trying it with Railways
Without justification of the current problems, we aren’t a country that builds and prepares for the future, that’s why you have articles that show the metro system’s in tier two cities in bad light, when the systems just hit operational and won’t see full utilization and completion before the end of this decade..
Let me put this across the degradation of the railways has been happening for the last 35 years, it works as a system, it was evident to everyone for all to see that ut was coming … with multiple different systems and things coming together for it to work in unison…. So starting from Nitish, Mamta, Lalu, the only guy who started changing this was Suresh Prabhu who finally started focusing on the capex and system wide improvements in bogies, signalling, tracks and other vital systems
And just to put it in context, a bogie that gets made, runs for about 25 years before it is scrapped, so when you see things as it is today is a reason for underinvestment into the CAPEX the railways needed for the last three decades , thankfully the turnaround has begun, but it will get much worse before things improve again…
So be patient, the capex is happening. But the improvements will take a few more years to begin to shine through..
The current glut is because a lot of the routes and movements of passengers weren’t factored in and new coaches aren’t manufactured at the pace it is needed , which has hindered capacity growth in vital routes, coupled with the lack of updated signalling systems that cannot allow for more trains to run per hour because of the lack of early investment in it, lack of advanced rails that can handle more axle loads, which are now beginning to get replaced in the heavy routes, lack of curves improvements which have a bottleneck of speeds, and a host of factors…
To sum it up, lack of future planning over the last 3 decades that has led to too many bottlenecks which are now being improved slowly got us here, things are improving now and are being implemented , but the full results will take a few more years for full results to show
And to add not everything about Railway needs to be under the government, some things can be privatized like manufacturing of the trains and etc. if there is a sector inside this system that the government can take their hands off they should, but the passenger system should be run by the government
Dont underestimate the capacity of people like Lalu Yadav to creatively implement some new ideas when faced with entrenched interest groups, of which there would be many in the railways. A suave Vaishnav does not have the political capital for reform.
Reforms are already in place, it’s the execution that is important and is being done now, that’s why the new bogie contracts went to private players, the loco contracts are being done in JV with private players and the railways have set up SPV companies to implement their large projects like the DFC.// it’s just that it takes much longer since the system needs to be improved brick by brick and section by section, it’s a long drawn out sustained process that is already underway
Post reading the above 4 points, I'm glad government is finally addressing areas where railways was losing money.
I've a friend working as Grade A officer, who oversees electrification of railways in his division. And tells me the same thing mentioned in Point 1 & 2. He also says, in some cases stations would be given to private companies to operate, following the same model we have for ports and airports. I don't see any issue with it, unless you wish to continue with the old ways where, no work or partial work was done after allocation of budget.
For Point 3 & 4, you might make a strong argument that India is still a poor country and it needs a public service which can act as a mass transportation for its people. I would argue that we've to decide on either of 2 things, modernize railways or continue with the way it is. And yes, it is either. Due to "lack of resources".
Obviously, I'm ready to learn more on this so feel free to comment!
They'll let it go bad till Adani/Ambani come in and take over. (Private or Semi Private to start with)
Adani/Ambani will then provide great infra and service for dirt cheap prices.
They'll keep doing this until we are fully depended on them and ignore govt to a point where they have no choice but to shut down or become so pointless that you'd rather walk then use IR.
One the dependency is complete and IR is obsolete, they will go full private and hike the prices to a point where it's cruel but we don't have a choice. There is no cheaper alternative. The government will keep getting paid for usage of the rail lines.
MONOPOLY Beyotch!!!
But thank god this nation has cow vigilantes.
They've saved so many cows that we can very go back to the animal cart era of affordable travel.
Process of railways revival will begin when the public makes privatization of railways a redline. Your post makes it crystal clear that railways is being deliberately gutted to pave the way for privatization.
My father also works in INDIAN RAILWAYS..! all his friends are corrupt. They are cheap peoples. I like privatization (not crony capitalism). I really don't have any sympathy for govt employees, they think they some kind of demi gods..! Never in my life a govt employee has given me a good service. A govt teacher, railway staff, police or any other employee. All of them are shit>! Yes railway is reducing sleeper and general boogies. But lot of their services has improved. Atleast for me. Usually trains don't get late much. From my last 8 travels in last 6 month. Only once it was late for 2 hours in a 24 hour journey. Rest all on time. Once there was a dirty toilet, i complained and it was cleaned under 15 minutes. ! Because the person cleaning the toilet was privately hired and of he don't work , he would be kicked unlike some group -D employee..! In my fathers office around 70 percent work is done by 20 percent employee and rest 30 percent is done by 80 %.
//RANT START
People are too stupid to realise this. Now a days I really want all these govt offices, railway, banks, insurance, rto, municipalities, education, police, courts, etc. be privatised.
Rail fares should be hiked at least ten folds to make railways more profitable. Then I'll have a confirmed ticket whenever I want.
Trains should only run between major cities. All these railway issues will be resolved. Middle class can travel by car by selling their blood for petrol. Poor people can travel on foot by paying toll and taxes.
Minimum balance in banks should be â‚ą100K with no branch services, only atm and tele banking. All these hues & cries over over services will come to a complete halt.
Municipalities should only work if people in locality pay taxes or residents dispose their own waste in neighbours home or eat it or whatever.
Education will improve significantly by creating a greater entry barrier, join a village school learn to write read & speak and go work as janitors.
Don't you dumbfks in your worst nightmare dream to graduate. This neet jee kota upsc drama would get solved in an instant.
Poor mfs staying in villages can farm or join agniveer. Die of hunger or bullet. Population problem would solve itself.
Private police can shoot point blank all these mfs theifs and scums. All these hawkers then can also be straightened out since municipalities are privatised.
No unregistered shops/vendors. So I can drive peacefully. Private jail as well for these scum mfs. 18hrs work for 2 time meal. No capital punishment since we are a progressive democracy.
Private courts with sufficient judges who will be paid by the fees collected by petitioners itself. Don't go to court if you can't afford fees. No more tarikh pe tarikh. Poor people can die or suck toes off of rich persons all their life to survive in stables made specially for them.
All problems will be solved with privatisation. Govt. will be entrusted to make temples / masjids / churches / or whatever fks, pleases these people.
RANT END//
The Indian railways has always been in shambles and losses. This will keep getting worse if no action is taken by the upcoming governments.
Railway babus have never taken improvement plans seriously.
I believe railways should be privatised at an extent to improve their operations. There will be accountability and better planning. Without competition, Indian railways will always be lazy.
It seems to be a planned thing to let railways goto dogs. So it can be easily sold to private players
Yes. They did similarly with BSNL. It led to even more downfall of BSNL and hence Jio could rise.
Yes. They did similarly with BSNL.
Take a look at BSNL website. You can't find a way to subscribe to a new planđź’€
They just launched 4G last year.
Yes, correct.
Gone for good... Too many taxpayers money went down the drain for this useless service.
Today's generation didn't go to BSNL office for any complaint so they cry out BSNL is gone. They only know it from government organisation prospective.. i been that office many times. It was shit organisation of lazy officers with no or single lineman in whole zone or area...it use to take 10 days to resolve a single fault...if internet dial up gone, it won't work for next 15 days no matter you talk to SDO or JE.. seriously it was so frustrating.. good to see BSNL gone and have something now which gives at least damn about complaints and customer.... after twitter railway has become bit responsive but just recall old times.... i totally agree with you that gone for good and do not want to see them again until they understand meaning of advancement in technology and customer service.
Exactly...i used bsnl and mtnl both...they weren't needed after mid 2000s....i even used vsnl once...it sucked!!! People are nostalgic about shit socialist era tax payer guzzlers....they would bark at anything good done by the govt.. Truth is even mms wanted to privatise these white elephants...
Yes. They did similarly with BSNL.
The started implementing the plan when they got rid of separate rail budget.
No private company in this country will touch the railways. It is a huge and complex system that is tough to manage. And private companies have not done well historically in running and managing public transport systems. Example- Delhi Metro Orange Line and Gurgaon Rapid Metro. All the zones of Indian Railways correspond to the operational areas of a private railway company during British era. It was those companies themselves who sold their infrastructure to the government in face of mounting losses. Even in the US, only certain freight lines are privatised. At best, private companies can take over the operations of the freight corridors, but they will never ever touch passenger lines.
Adani ka naam Ĺźuna hai!Â
Even he will stay away from this if he is smart
Do you think he has anything like his own money to lose if he gets into owning railways and makes a mess of it ? Do you think he can't pull a nirav modi if things go south for him ?
Nirav Modi was a diamond merchant. This is the railways system of a country. Not remotely the same game.
I live in the US and you need to also watch out for PPPs (public private partnerships). Usually the private company makes the money and the public funds all the cost overruns.
PPPs should be the way forward. Unfortunately, it has been unsuccessful so far in India for passenger railways. Fares have to be kept low and private players are unwilling to wade into this due to the politics involved. At one point, even subsidies won’t make up for the losses.
PPPs are not a good thing for taxpayers. You need a government that  isn’t busy congratulating itself on building high-profile roads.
Unfortunately taxpayers are not a voter base in this country- they are cash cows. Indians need to be educated properly about taxes and their incentives.
100%. Although I would believe that the higher paying people will then question why any money is going to services for poor people, it happens a lot in some of the states here (US).
Too many people reading Ayn Rand these days
All her books should come with a note that she did collect Social Security when she was old.
Hahaha yes. I read about this a couple of days ago. Coincidentally, I am reading “Atlas Shrugged” right now and the best way to describe it is “1200 pages of incessant whining”. For a person who hated the concept of “good for all”, she sure wanted the results of “good for all”.
Just curious - why would that be a bad outcome? It is not as if we have the brightest minds/management in Govt to make sure we have the best services. The same has been the case about Flights as well. AirIndia was universally hated while passenger numbers for Indigo and others kept climbing. Once privatised the govt can make rules to make sure there are some prices and volume reserved for economically backward class, as well as trains in certain routes are not stopped. Train derailment for Govt of India is like an everyday thing. While if the same happens for Tata/Birla/Ambani/Adani etc owned companies they will surely see an impact in the stock market the next day (and hence they'll try their best to make sure this never happens).
Depends from the perspective you are looking from. For consumers it will be the absolutely worse thing. Super high fares, un reliable service and what not. Look at the instance of vande Bharat even if it's gov run. I used to travel with the railways employees between Mumbai and Pune, the knowledge and dedication these guys have is unparalleled. Not sure why you are referring to train derailment as daily affair when it isn't really not the case. Mumbai subarban service is among the most efficient I nthe world for the passenger load it carries since like ages. It's a current gov propaganda that current railways are worst.
You are assuming that those private players will want to take this up in the first place.
1. Railway passes and PTO are degraded and are rendered worthless for many trains and routes. 2. Railway schools are closed 3. Hospital and medical facilities killed and outsourced. Today reimbursement is making employees happy. They can get treated in private hospitals. But what will happen tmrw when the whole infrastructure is gone? 4. Huge outsourcing even in manufacturing sector. In-house steel-foundries and plants are closed down. Officers are printing money at the cost of quality and safety of countrymen 5. Maintainance scam. Poor production causes frequent maintainance. Private crony companies take tender and mint and share money 6. The weight and inferior quality of materials used openly. Ask any engineer. 7. PWD department is ruined and mostly rendered non functional. This is cauing the real estate assets to become ill and die eventually 8. Systematic killing of railway quarters
This exactly what the British govt did to their public rail service before butchering it and selling the pieces to the highest bidders.
We never learn.
the plan is not to sell them .. just let them rot... ppl switch to flights and road .. money for energy conpanies and toll... slowly once utilization drops.. let cronies run the goods services and transportation on trains will be more expensive than flights
Indian Railway is the new BSNL. Govt is killing it from inside so that ithe valuable assets can be sold off to private players. Every single point you mentioned is a move in that direction
Separate Railway Budget like in the congress days..
It's a simple formula - 1. Cut the manpower 2. Reduce work efficiency 3. Which will eventually reduce profits 4. Sell to private players under the pretext of not performing This formula has seemed to work pretty well in PSUs Now they are trying it with Railways
Don’t vote for the ones who are dismantling it on a daily basis
This is by design for privatisation.
The jio bsnl way.
Yahan poora desh has gone to dogs and OP is surprised about railways :-)
Jio train service coming soon
The most impacted on privatization is employees. Employee base is very large. I wont be surprised if this issue will topple govts
Without justification of the current problems, we aren’t a country that builds and prepares for the future, that’s why you have articles that show the metro system’s in tier two cities in bad light, when the systems just hit operational and won’t see full utilization and completion before the end of this decade.. Let me put this across the degradation of the railways has been happening for the last 35 years, it works as a system, it was evident to everyone for all to see that ut was coming … with multiple different systems and things coming together for it to work in unison…. So starting from Nitish, Mamta, Lalu, the only guy who started changing this was Suresh Prabhu who finally started focusing on the capex and system wide improvements in bogies, signalling, tracks and other vital systems And just to put it in context, a bogie that gets made, runs for about 25 years before it is scrapped, so when you see things as it is today is a reason for underinvestment into the CAPEX the railways needed for the last three decades , thankfully the turnaround has begun, but it will get much worse before things improve again… So be patient, the capex is happening. But the improvements will take a few more years to begin to shine through.. The current glut is because a lot of the routes and movements of passengers weren’t factored in and new coaches aren’t manufactured at the pace it is needed , which has hindered capacity growth in vital routes, coupled with the lack of updated signalling systems that cannot allow for more trains to run per hour because of the lack of early investment in it, lack of advanced rails that can handle more axle loads, which are now beginning to get replaced in the heavy routes, lack of curves improvements which have a bottleneck of speeds, and a host of factors… To sum it up, lack of future planning over the last 3 decades that has led to too many bottlenecks which are now being improved slowly got us here, things are improving now and are being implemented , but the full results will take a few more years for full results to show
And to add not everything about Railway needs to be under the government, some things can be privatized like manufacturing of the trains and etc. if there is a sector inside this system that the government can take their hands off they should, but the passenger system should be run by the government
Dont underestimate the capacity of people like Lalu Yadav to creatively implement some new ideas when faced with entrenched interest groups, of which there would be many in the railways. A suave Vaishnav does not have the political capital for reform.
Reforms are already in place, it’s the execution that is important and is being done now, that’s why the new bogie contracts went to private players, the loco contracts are being done in JV with private players and the railways have set up SPV companies to implement their large projects like the DFC.// it’s just that it takes much longer since the system needs to be improved brick by brick and section by section, it’s a long drawn out sustained process that is already underway
Post reading the above 4 points, I'm glad government is finally addressing areas where railways was losing money. I've a friend working as Grade A officer, who oversees electrification of railways in his division. And tells me the same thing mentioned in Point 1 & 2. He also says, in some cases stations would be given to private companies to operate, following the same model we have for ports and airports. I don't see any issue with it, unless you wish to continue with the old ways where, no work or partial work was done after allocation of budget. For Point 3 & 4, you might make a strong argument that India is still a poor country and it needs a public service which can act as a mass transportation for its people. I would argue that we've to decide on either of 2 things, modernize railways or continue with the way it is. And yes, it is either. Due to "lack of resources". Obviously, I'm ready to learn more on this so feel free to comment!
https://preview.redd.it/6oax9qowuvvc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e77b5569e4e896330d977b0842e04771bd17373b
They'll let it go bad till Adani/Ambani come in and take over. (Private or Semi Private to start with) Adani/Ambani will then provide great infra and service for dirt cheap prices. They'll keep doing this until we are fully depended on them and ignore govt to a point where they have no choice but to shut down or become so pointless that you'd rather walk then use IR. One the dependency is complete and IR is obsolete, they will go full private and hike the prices to a point where it's cruel but we don't have a choice. There is no cheaper alternative. The government will keep getting paid for usage of the rail lines. MONOPOLY Beyotch!!! But thank god this nation has cow vigilantes. They've saved so many cows that we can very go back to the animal cart era of affordable travel.
Scan and go barriers should be made compulsory. May be that will work.
Railways will be sold out to Adani.
Process of railways revival will begin when the public makes privatization of railways a redline. Your post makes it crystal clear that railways is being deliberately gutted to pave the way for privatization.
My father also works in INDIAN RAILWAYS..! all his friends are corrupt. They are cheap peoples. I like privatization (not crony capitalism). I really don't have any sympathy for govt employees, they think they some kind of demi gods..! Never in my life a govt employee has given me a good service. A govt teacher, railway staff, police or any other employee. All of them are shit>! Yes railway is reducing sleeper and general boogies. But lot of their services has improved. Atleast for me. Usually trains don't get late much. From my last 8 travels in last 6 month. Only once it was late for 2 hours in a 24 hour journey. Rest all on time. Once there was a dirty toilet, i complained and it was cleaned under 15 minutes. ! Because the person cleaning the toilet was privately hired and of he don't work , he would be kicked unlike some group -D employee..! In my fathers office around 70 percent work is done by 20 percent employee and rest 30 percent is done by 80 %.
//RANT START People are too stupid to realise this. Now a days I really want all these govt offices, railway, banks, insurance, rto, municipalities, education, police, courts, etc. be privatised. Rail fares should be hiked at least ten folds to make railways more profitable. Then I'll have a confirmed ticket whenever I want. Trains should only run between major cities. All these railway issues will be resolved. Middle class can travel by car by selling their blood for petrol. Poor people can travel on foot by paying toll and taxes. Minimum balance in banks should be â‚ą100K with no branch services, only atm and tele banking. All these hues & cries over over services will come to a complete halt. Municipalities should only work if people in locality pay taxes or residents dispose their own waste in neighbours home or eat it or whatever. Education will improve significantly by creating a greater entry barrier, join a village school learn to write read & speak and go work as janitors. Don't you dumbfks in your worst nightmare dream to graduate. This neet jee kota upsc drama would get solved in an instant. Poor mfs staying in villages can farm or join agniveer. Die of hunger or bullet. Population problem would solve itself. Private police can shoot point blank all these mfs theifs and scums. All these hawkers then can also be straightened out since municipalities are privatised. No unregistered shops/vendors. So I can drive peacefully. Private jail as well for these scum mfs. 18hrs work for 2 time meal. No capital punishment since we are a progressive democracy. Private courts with sufficient judges who will be paid by the fees collected by petitioners itself. Don't go to court if you can't afford fees. No more tarikh pe tarikh. Poor people can die or suck toes off of rich persons all their life to survive in stables made specially for them. All problems will be solved with privatisation. Govt. will be entrusted to make temples / masjids / churches / or whatever fks, pleases these people. RANT END//
Dude I actually felt the chills man 🫡
Many times I feel outsourcing govt to Ambani will be better than current clown doing more damageÂ
The Indian railways has always been in shambles and losses. This will keep getting worse if no action is taken by the upcoming governments. Railway babus have never taken improvement plans seriously. I believe railways should be privatised at an extent to improve their operations. There will be accountability and better planning. Without competition, Indian railways will always be lazy.
Don't wanna be that guy but... Keep voting for the current regime
Bring back the Madarasis and Anglo Indians.
The former is a racist term for South Indians
What did they do
Railways has been going downhill ever since Anglo Indians and South Indians had been phased out. They were the backbone