This refers to “Mamata’s China tour” (March 6). I would rather suggest a tour to the Railway zones in West Bengal falling within Eastern Railways and South-Eastern Railways. The two documents, the white paper and the vision statement, released by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee well before the Budget made a song and dance about the railway GDP.
We all must know that as against an average operating ratio of 90+ per cent, there are zones that boast of well over 130 per cent, and this has little to do with the GDP of the states through which these zonal railways run.
The Railways cannot legitimately claim to have a totally independent accounting system that chooses to make a mockery of the ratio of operating expenditure to income. The country’s largest public utility must be treated as any other commercial undertaking and asked to have an operating ratio that is manageable and not one that hits the roof year after year.
KS Ramachandran, Gurgaon