national business
An Unnoticed Reform
There is no justification for a separate Rail Budget when allocation for other departments
like defense, roads and highways are much more and yet form part of general budget
By K R Sudhaman
A
silent but major economic reform has happened in the
country which has largely gone unnoticed. Scrapping
of Rail Budget and merging it with general budget,
doing away with distinction of plan and non plan
expenditure and advancing of general budget to February one
are certainly not a small reforms step but have a major, positive
and far-reaching benefit to the economy that has not been fully
understood.
Scrapping of nearly a century old practice of having separate
Railway budget is yet another step to dismantle colonial
hangover. Rail Budget was started by British in 1924 as at that
time rail budgets were very large and at time almost that of
general budget financially.
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The Dayafter November 16-30, 2016
Rail budget will be merged into general budget from the
coming financial year. Nowhere in the World there is a separate
Rail Budget. Somehow in India, this archaic practice has been
continued even 70 years after independence to perpetuate
populism, which all political parties enjoy indulging in.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is right in saying there is no
justification for a separate Rail budget when allocation for
certain other departments like defense, roads and highways are
much more and yet form part of general budget.
Announcements in rail budget seldom get implemented for
paucity of resources. Yet Rail Budgets announce several projects
year after year because of popular demand by political parties
to the satisfaction of their respective constituency knowing full
well such projects are not economically viable and technically
feasible. Rail budgets have been exploited the most during the