It may be stupid on my part to say that Modi lead NDA Government is functioning like the UPA ruled sarkar. At least not yet, barring a couple of instances when one feels that his 56 inch wali sarkar ka seena ( Chest ) has shrunk.
Yes, I felt the same when the government drew cold feet on the gas pricing issue. I am not qualified to comment on the same for want of home work on my part.
But, Yes, I felt so when the rail minister rolled back the local passenger tickets & pass fares, under pressure from shiv - sena and other local alliances. Why ?? because of elections. It is not befitting Modi sarkar. It is understood that the commuter in Mumbai wants status quo, but then if you analyse then you would notice that the pass holder pays for about 15 trips in a month, compared to his actual 50 odd trips ( leaving the weekly offs ), Similarly the daily tickets for Borivili - Churchgate or Karjat / Kasara - VT are abysmally low. If the railway ministers do not raise the fares for years together for the fear of backlash / loosing vote banks then the Railways would remain like that for life long. Instead, if the fares are calibrated on yearly basis on the basis of fuel and electricity charges then people would be mentally prepared.
The pass holders fares should immediately be increased to cover 25 trips instead of 15 at present. Then probably this too can be increased every year by about 2 trips / every year till it reaches 40 trips. This should be implemented in the budget itself.
It is Surprising to see people's mentality also. They accept the inflation in food items, petrol / diesel, cinema tickets, clothing and what not, why forget the air fares, but not the Road / Railway fares.
I for one though I am retired person, feel that the railway fares should increase 2 - 3 % every year across the board, be it the freights / local trains / passenger - fast - super fast trains.
If we want the services / infrastructure to improve, if we want the bullet trains , if we want railway network to cover our frontiers too, then we should be prepared for shelling out some money.
I would rather be prepared to shell out more to see our stations & platforms spic & span, Rail Lines on stations devoid of shit and obnoxious smell, better safety, our compartments of better ( if not international ) standards, better toilets in compartments, better food quality, more trains, easy ticket availability, better booking systems, etc etc
I hear the logic of some people who say - the government should plug the loopholes, arrest corruption, improve efficiency, etc etc. their point is well taken. But then it will take 5 decades to come to that stage.
Shall we wait?
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