Partnership of India Railway and financing of Indian Railway Projects at Border Areas - The Ethmos Views

Indian Railways is one of the biggest corporates of the Indian government. Indian railways was one of the crown jewels of the British Raj.  It is one of the precious gifts of the Raj to independent India.

In the current scenario Indian railway is moving at snail's pace. As per the data Rs. 60,000 Cr projects have been sanctioned since 10 years; only one has been able to see the shining light.

As per the recent studies the operating cost of Indian Railways is 94%. So a simple mathematics is that the railways is spending Rs. 94/- to earn Rs. 100/-. So ultimately after taking so much pain our bureaucrats are able to deliver only Rs. 6/- as profit, which is even less than the profit margin of a kirana tapri near your house.

Railways is one of the lifeline of a country and is the catalyst for growth. It has power to develop business centres. In this article we will discuss the strategic alliance of Indian railways and Defence Ministry for development of the railway line at Sino-Indian border.

Strategic alliance

India is sharing nearly 3488 kms border with China. This border has been in history text as one of the most disputed borders and quite famous as Sino-Indian border issue.

Chinese Railways - have you seen anything like that in India??

The famous Machmohan line comprises this border.

Defence ministry has come up with proposal of rail networking of our borders which will help it for deployment of troops across north-eastern states. This has been a dream of our Indian government to connect the seven sisters via railway to main land India.  This will not only help the NE area with better connectivity but it will also help them in flourishing the business centres.

During the recent times China has developed airfields and railways not only in there area but also in the nearby countries such as Myanmar.

These development are of strategic importance as this will provide tactical support to the country under the circumstances of national threat. Till now India has not developed any such facility in her border areas. It is a high time now.  The whole world is watching these developments closely. We have to build the facility to show our military and infrastructure prowess to the world.

However we at ETHMOS believe that every financial and economical development should be self-sustainable,  It should not be at the mercy of the central or state governments.

In order to make this proposal a whooping success we suggest few things that can be implemented by the railways with the help of the Indian military and locals:

1.  Proposed station can be heritage station

2. Control of station should be under the Indian Army so that under difficult situations local ultras will not be able to control the rail network across north east.

3. Like education cess, rail cess should be charged on income tax which will provide capital for development of rail network across NE states.

4.  Tenders should be floated by local authorities for restaurants, hotels, and other amenities as the railway station should be able to generate enough to operate properly.

5.  The tourism hub should be developed under the vicinity of these development as this will add to the revenue of the state and local government.

The control of this whole network should be under BRO ( BORDER ROAD ORGANISATION). This organisation has proved again and again that they are able to manage at difficult terrain and high altitude effectively. BRO will be able to help Indian military under the situation of threat or during counter-insurgency operations.

We believe that all financial systems, if generated in a self-sustaining and environmentally sustaining manner, are always viable and beneficial to the society at large.  We hope our suggestions reach the appropriate people in the powers that be.

Note:

Author is one of the novice writer on the issue of military strategy.  Although the views of the author are person, but Ethmos takes complete responsibility for them and please hang all of us if you want to hang the person who wrote this.

HAPPY ETHMOS TO ALL