The Report That Aims to Make the Rail Budget History

Railways Minister Prabhu wrote to Arun Jaitley requesting him to merge the Railway Budget with the Union Budget

Doing away with the annual exercise of presenting the railway budget may make the Railway Board more unaccountable. (Photo: PTI)

India may soon end its 92-year tradition of presenting a separate Railway Budget.

The idea was first mooted in a report titled “Dispensing with the Rail Budget,” jointly authored by National Institution for Transforming India (Niti) Aayog member Bibek Debroy and Officer on Special Duty, Kishore Desai.

Subsequently, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu wrote to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley requesting him to merge the Railway Budget with the Union Budget, citing the long-term interest of the railways, and the nation.

On 10 August, BloombergQuint had reported that a ‘joint working group’ will be set up to look into the modalities of the merger, and that the group will be either headed by Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha or Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa.

The existence of a a separate railway budget has led to politisation of railway’s affairs, according to Debroy and Desai’s report. The merger will help solve this issue.

Precisely because of this visible national attention (wide following of the Railway Budget), the Railway Budget started becoming more a political platform to project a populist, pro-common man image of the government of the day, rather than as a tool to address the Railways’ fundamental concerns.  

Read the full BloombergQuint report here.