Having Given Suresh Prabhu Mission Impossible, Modi Can Hardly Let Him Down Now

The Narendra Modi government is not so spoilt for talent that it can afford to let a competent and conscientious minister like Suresh Prabhu to leave the Railways Ministry. Prabhu has offered to resign, owning moral responsibility for the recent spate of train accidents, and the PM is reported to have asked him to “wait”. He should have summarily rejected the resignation, for Prabhu is not easily replaceable.

It is no one’s case that Indian Railways cannot be run better. But it cannot be set right in just a couple of years, for its problems are deep-rooted and structural in nature. It is simply overmanned and inefficient, and is steadily losing market share and revenues to the road sector, which is far more cost-effective for logistics in all areas barring bulk traffic. Even in passenger traffic, the railways are losing their best-paying customers to a more efficient aviation industry, where severe competition and efficient use of aircraft assets has made it possible for passengers using the first and AC classes to upgrade.

It is only in providing cheap, lower-class passenger fares that the Indian Railways comes anywhere near fulfilling its social mandate, but this is a function of uneconomic fares and over-loading of passengers in high-density routes and suburban sections, where people travel like cattle most days.

The Prime Minister can be forgiven for thinking that the railways have not delivered on his expectation of creating the Modi equivalent of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Golden Quadrilateral in the railways (as yet), but this has nothing to do with Prabhu’s personal failures.

If Modi cares to look beyond the obvious, he should note that he has essentially handed Prabhu Mission Impossible. If a Railways Minister is expected to keep fares low, freight steady, improve railway safety, maintain a highly unionised manpower base that is overpaid and underworked, find resources to fund important new freight corridors, and back high-profile projects like bullet trains at a time when the economy is sliding downhill, the resources available to him are simply not enough.

Despite these handicaps, Prabhu has improved the railways’ image among passengers, increased passenger amenities, launched a major station development initiative to raise private resources, and created enough space for high investments in improving existing track and electrification projects.

Modi should also reckon with the reality that the United Progressive Alliance spiked his guns by mandating a growth-retarding Land Acquisition Act, which has stymied even dynamic ministers like Nitin Gadkari. The National Highways Authority of India is paying huge amounts to acquire land for highways, making both the award and execution of projects difficult and unrealistically expensive, thus extending the period required to make them self-financing.

The last thing Modi can afford to do is shift his Railways Minister from the department that requires his services the most. Few ministers are battling against like Suresh Prabhu, and he does not deserve a rap on the knuckles for developments beyond his control.