Railways' muddled priorities

Problem with premium trains is not their occupancy levels, which are fairly high by any yardstick

The Indian Railways has just put out its grand plans for launching high-speed railway projects to connect Mumbai with Ahmedabad and Delhi with Varanasi. Their political significance can hardly be ignored. But perhaps more important is the disconcerting message they convey about the misplaced priorities of the Indian Railways. 

Announcements of new projects will certainly get the railway ministry many newspaper headlines. But these newspaper headlines alone won’t address the crying need for improving the Indian Railways’ overall services for transporting passengers. You may argue that high-speed railway projects are as important as the need to make existing passenger services better