NEED FOR PARTIAL DE CONTROL OF OIL & GAS PRICING ALONG WITH CONTIUNATION OF SUBSIDIES FOR THE DESERVING PEOPLE & SECTORS

MEASURES FOR REDUCTION OF OIL, GAS SUBSIDIES, NEED FOR PARTIAL

“DE CONTROL OF OIL PRICES”

FOR STRENGTHENING OF ECONOMY FOR FUTURE BETTERMENT OF ALL PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY

NEED FOR PARTIAL DE CONTROL OF FUEL PRICES FOR ECONOMIC STABILITY & PROSPERITY; EXTENSION OF FUEL SUBSIDIES FOR CULTIVATION, TRANSPORT OF AGRICULTURE PRODUCE & TRANSPORT OF PROCESSED FOODS; TO ENSURE THE COST OF PRODUCTION AS WELL AS SALE PRICE OF AGRICULTURE PRODUCE UNDER CONTROL; EXTENSION OF FUEL SUBSIDIES FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT, FOR COOKING PURPOSES IN HOUSE HOLD AS PER INCOME GROUP & WELFARE HOSTELS, CANTEENS IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, OFFICES AND NGO’S SERVING CHARITY MEALS FOR ORPHANS & OLD AGE HOMES, RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS

As we all knew that fuel prices also determine the out of the agriculture as well as agriculture output price since majority of the farmers are dependent on ground water or water to be lifted from wells, far way places through motor pumps, operated by diesel as these motors are supposed to be operated by the electric current, but due to the acute power shortage in the villages with less than 6 hours of power supply in villages on an average. Also the diesel prices will determine the prices of goods in the retail market due to the transport cost depends up on the diesel price. After all everyone is working for the food only at first, as such government must ensure food prices are stable at all times, As such government must keep the diesel prices very low all the times to ensure the food prices are stable all the times by providing maximum subside on the diesel for the farm sector and the goods transport sector, as these sectors consume less than 1/6^th of the total diesel consumption approximately. Since the oil companies are running into heavy losses due to heavy fuel subsidies, government providing on all fuels, but it is very unfortunate the government got the people addicted to the subsidies for decades together, it is very dangerous trend that was adopted by the governments in past and continued till date subsidizing all the fuels and the loses due to the fuel subsidy is being absorbed by the government leading to hampering the development as well as welfare activities in the Country weakening the country’s economy.

As such the government must strengthen the economy by             partial de control of the fuel prices over a period of time ( most ideal within a year in three or four quarters) by completely lifting the subsidies on the fuel (only petrol and diesel) and selling the fuel at the market price with exception to fuel to the agriculture (diesel), fuel to the goods transport (Diesel) especially food supply vehicles like milk vans, groceries carriers etc and fuel to the house hold cooking (kerosene, LPG),  if we look at the consumption of the fuel the Transport  sector consumes 51% of the total fuels (Petrol, Diesel, CNG, Aviation fuel), where as the Industry  sector consumes 14% (Petrol, Diesel, Fuel oil, Naphtha, Natural Gas), where as the Commercial sector & other sectors consume 13%, and the Domestic sector consumes 18% ( LPG & Kerosene) and the Agriculture sector consumes 4%(Diesel) of the total fuel consumption in India. the statistics shows that for every 1000 population in India the number of vehicles are around 113 out of with no of cars is around 11 and around 102 the number of two wheelers with the total vehicle population in India is around 12 crores.

REGULATING FUEL SUBSIDIES FOR COOKING PURPOSES

Also the kerosene and LPG should be continued at the present rate of subsidies as the people are tuned for this rate without enhancing further and the losses should be completely absorbed by the government only, and introduce the pricing of the LPG as per the income group and determine the number of refill cylinders as per the income group which is the ultimate social solution to the economic issue as this system reduces the subsidy burden on the LPG by over 70 % of the total burden on government. Since the agriculture sector consumes only 4 % of the total fuel consumption there is no much burden on government to provide subsidies to the agriculture sector, which has a great impact on the agriculture production, cost of the food grains.

Also it is ideal that there should not be any restriction in the issue of number of refill cylinders of LGP, it is most ideal that the cost of LPG refill cylinders in future should be  placed as per the annual income of the family by making it mandatory integration of the gas registration numbers with the PDS cards and also Income tax pan number and also on getting the Affidavit from the gas connection owner about the family income which should be subjected to verification through the income tax department and also with punishments for wrong declaration equivalent to suspension of gas connection for one year by making them to surrender the regulator or face the the imprisonment for few months. This will ensure that subsidies will be only for the poor and burden on the BPL and Low income and middle income group should be less as the costs of the LPG Refill cylinders should be placed under seven rate structures, the BPL families Rs 50 less than the present subsidy rate, all the Low Income group at the present subsidy rate, All the middle income group (low, middle, higher middle income group with low middle income group Rs 50 more than the present rate, middle middle income group Rs 75 more than the present rate and the higher middle income group Rs 100 more than the current rate) and the higher income group use should be Rs 150 more than actual cost and the commercial use LPG refills should be Rs 200 more than the actual cost. Also government must provide subsidized LPG commercial refill cylinders for all the welfare hostels of SC, ST and OBC and also all the angan wadies, all old age homes, all the hospital kitchens, all kittens/restaurants located  and operated by in government school, college, university and government offices, private factories, industrial canteens  and also in all the religious institutes and temples, gurudwaras, churches, masjids etc and also in places where NGO’s run orphan centres for poor feedings etc where ever food is prepared etc should be provided with the subsidized commercial refill LPG cylinders. Also it should be most ideal that BPL families should be given 9 cylinders, the low income group should be given 12 cylinders and middle income group & higher income group should be given 15 to 18 cylinders; with providing the number in each refill cylinder and purely on the surrender of the previous refill only new refill should be provided. This numbering of the cylinders will ensure that the cylinders use for each category will not be misused by them due to the low cost for the various categories compared to other higher categories. This will reduce the fuel LPG, kerosene by over 70 % to the government.

REGULATING FUEL SUBSIDIES FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT, FUEL PRICING AS PER INCOME GROUP FOR PERSONAL TRANSPORT

Also in order to reduce the  burden on the common man transport  by two wheelers, three wheelers and passenger cars due to de regulation of petrol prices, the government must make it mandatory that all the schools, colleges and office establishments both government, private to provide the bus transport to the students and employees to reduce the fuel burden on the individuals, this will help not only in reducing the fuel burden on the individual but also reduces the environment pollution in urban , semi urban areas where the maximum pollution is caused by the personal vehicles due to the use for schools and office purposes which ranges from 60 to 85% of the total vehicle traffic in the cities and urban areas.  The statistics shows that out of total vehicle population in India 72% vehicles are two wheelers, 13 % are passenger cars & jeeps and 5 % are goods & commercial vehicles and 1.2% are buses and remaining other including tractors, three wheelers etc. The statistics of the fuel consumption value in India shows that over 74% of the diesel, 22 % of the petrol and 3% CNG/LPG and 1% of the electric fuel. Also the vehicular population majority are two stroke two wheelers which consume more fuel in total volumes and also emit more pollution which can reduced by providing the multi mode rapid transport system, also by making mandatory all students and employees should use the bus transport for reaching the educational institutions and offices with complete ban of entry of personal vehicles in the office premises and debarring the students from the educational institutions for not using the bus provided by the educational institute other wise use of the bicycles and electric vehicles should be permitted.  As it saves lot of fuel, as studies indicate diesel buses rank the highest at the range of 25 to 40 liters per 100 km travel. The least fuel efficient motorbikes, consuming less than 2.5 litters per 100 km. Diesel and petrol cars burn about 7 to 10 liters per 100 km. If we analyze the quantity of fuel in liters per person per 100 km, assuming that all the vehicles are fully loaded, i.e., 50 people for a bus, 2 people for a car and one people for a motorbike. Then petrol motorbike requires 2-4 liters per person-100 km travel, but a bus rider consumes no more than 0.8 liters to 1.25 liters of diesel per person. Diesel and gasoline cars are in the range between 3 liters to 4 liters per person-100 km. It clearly indicates that bus transport will save lot of fuel as well as traffic pollution and traffic congestion. As such government must make it mandatory that all schools and offices should compulsorily maintain the buses and all the students/employees should use the school/office bus to reach to the school/office from home and return from school/office to the home, all the official office work can be performed in the office passenger cars/vehicles. To make it a hassle free due to congestion in traffic due to buses, government should ensure variable timings of schools/offices in the cities and towns from 7 am, 8 am, 9 am 9.30 am in schools and 7 am to 3 pm, 8 am to 4 pm, 9 am to 5 pm and 10 am to 6 pm adjusting as per timings based on the traffic in the areas coordination between the schools and offices in the area.

NEED FOR CENTRAL PETRO FUEL NETWORK AUTHORITY

Also government must mandatorily constitute Central Petro Fuels Network Authority (CPFNA) by integrating all the fuel dispensing pumps with the all State Transport Authorities computerised data of the registered vehicles & the valid driving licence holders and re issue/ new issue of electronic chip based cards for the vehicle registration and the drivers licence, making the computer system integrated with the petrol pumps issue fuel only on reading the electronic  vehicle registration card  as well as the electronic driving licence card which ensures that the vehicle is fit by ensuring the mandatory vehicle pollution checks periodically (otherwise the fuel issue will be barred by non delivery registry in the vehicle in the RTA office and through CPFNA system- as mentioned in my document “simple and effective reforms for controlling corruption and delivering good governance “ in the sub heading “transport sector reforms”- Dec-2011) make the fuel dispensed through the fuel pumps. Also this will ensure that the fuel dispensed for the goods vehicles can get the subsidized fuel as in the system of CPFNA the category of the vehicles can be registered. Also for the passenger cars and taxies can be identified in the system separately, Also the passenger cars can be dived into five segments i.e “B segment cars” with value less than 5 lack rupees, the “C segment cars” with value ranging from Rs 5 to Rs 10 lacks and “D segment cars” value ranging from Rs 11 to Rs 25 lacks and “E segment cars” with value between Rs 26 to Rs 45 lacks and “F segment cars” with value above  Rs 46 lacks, all the value of new cars at the time of first registration of the vehicle. The cost of the fuel for the cars should be based on the segment of the car to ensure that even middle class and higher class should have the difference of cost variation of fuel. Also the fuel issue for all two wheelers above Rs one lack should be on par with “D segment cars” Also in this method the fuel can be priced based on the use of quantity and also based on the type of the vehicle i.e two wheels and four wheelers and the SUV/MUV through the entry in the CPFNA system  while issuing the re registered / new electronic vehicle registration cards, to ensure that low income and middle income group who uses the two wheelers will get a  concessional rate for first 25 litres the cost of fuel is Rs X per litre, for use above the 25 litres the cost of fuel is greater than Rs X per litre. Also in the case of cars the same with first 100 liters should have one rate and over and above 100 liters more rate within the segments of the cars. Also the separate rate of fuel for the two wheelers which is should be less than the four wheelers, likewise the fuel for the private passenger car taxies should be reduced to some extent. Also the fuel subsidies should be extended to state road transport vehicles and the private public carrier vehicles more than 12 seats and the railways in order keep the momentum of people using more public transport reducing the use of fuel as well as reducing the traffic pollution, reducing the traffic congestions, Also similarly the SUV and MUV passenger cars should be charged more as they belong to upper echelons of society.

Also the congress party should ensure that government must absorb maximum fuel subsidy for household supply of the cooking gas LPG cost (which accounts only 18% of the total fuel costs in India) especially for the BPL, Low income group and low middle income group, as it touches their family lives directly, especially women who has a greater influence on the family, also government should encourage the establishment of goober gas plants in villages and ensure the villages uses the goober gas instead of dry fossil forest produce for cooking as the statistics shows over 85 % of the cooking in villages is using the fossil fuel only 5 % kerosene & 2 % LPG gas.

METHODS OF IMPLEMENTING FUEL SECTOR REFORMS

So the first and foremost thing government should make is to make a plan within three months to get the data integration of all PDS cards and the Pan cards and colleting the voluntary affidavit submission from the LPG consumers regarding the income status in the LPG supply centres in their locality, then the scrutiny of the data and the delivery of the LPG based on the income structure should start less than six months from now.

The second thing is to issue guidelines for all the educational institutions, offices both government as well as private to make arrangements for bus transport and coordination with local municipal, police to fix the suitable timings for the educational institutions and offices in that locality to avoid traffic congestion. And making it mandatory that from next financial year for the offices and next calendar year for the educational institutions to mandatorily use the bus transport and completely banning the individual vehicle transport to reach the office/educational institution. To ensure the strict implementation all offices/ office complexes and educational institutions should mandatorily fix the CC Cameras at the entrance and exit routes of the educational institutions and offices, Also the municipal and police authorities to put the CC cameras at the entrance of the road / lane leading to the educational institute / office to monitor the entry, exit to prevent the individual vehicle use.

The third thing is to start immediately incorporating the electronic data card readers in all fuel issue stations i.e petrol pumps and diesel pumps, simultaneously government must fix a time frame of six months for re registering the vehicle registration to be issued in the electronic smart card, and re registration of the driving licences, apart from issue of new vehicle registration as well as driving licences in the electronic smart card form.

The fourth thing is to integrate the Road Transport Authority data of different districts with states and different states with the CPFNA. With classification of vehicles as per the  sector, value like the commercial vehicle, the buses, the passenger car taxies, the goods carriers, the personal passenger cars as per their value etc.

The fifth most important thing is to to start de regulating process and complete in six months to provide the fuel at market  price for sectors other than the eligible for subsidy and pricing based on the sector wise and value of the vehicle wise, use of the fuel wise.  This process should be stated six months before the CPFNA is about to get ready to be operate able. All this process should be completed within 18 months from now. This will ensure from the 2014 April onwards governments burden on fuel subsidies will start reducing to the extent of 60 to 65 % of the total burden, making from 2015 April onwards over one lack crores burden will be reduced on the government, and at the same time over two lack crores burden will be reduced on individuals for using the bus transport for going to educational institutions as well as offices, which means over two lack crores rupees per year is saving of the people of India remain in banks/post offices or in the market means more productivity as the purchase power got increased. Also every year government saving of  Rs one lack croes on account of fuel subsidy reduction may be utilised for creation of better health care, better sanitary facilities in the schools, better education, better nutrition for children & women, better roads etc by spending the same amount through year after year savings attributed due to fuel subsidy reduction.

CONCLUSION

This system of fuel delivery & different cost structure of fuels for different class of people will certainly emphasises that “governments are thinking rationally” while making the policies and also ensures the “responsible behaviour from the people”, which will enable the delivery system certainly be a WIN-WIN and shall be appreciated by all sections of the people for doing justice to them as well as the country since the economy is stable due to drastic reduction in the fuel subsidies, more strengthen economy means more better rating by the international rating agencies, better rating means more investment friendly atmosphere means more development activities means more  jobs & more growth rate means more comforts and facilities for the people. Also more subsidies on fuel to agriculture means more agriculture output means more food at economy price and more nutritional food means more healthy life for the people of the country.

NEED FOR FIXING PERILS REGARDING FDI IN RETAIL; NEED FOR FDI IN AGRICULTURE; MEASURES FOR ACHIEVING GROWTH WITHOUT FDI IN FUTURE

MEASURES TO FIX EXISTING PERILS AMONG VARIOUS SECTIONS OF PEOPLE REGARDING 

“FDI IN RETAIL”

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NEED FOR FDI IN AGRICULTURE SECTOR FOR INPUT SUPPLIES, BACK END INFRASTRUCTURE CREATION

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MEASURES FOR ACHIEVING GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT IN FUTURE “WITHOUT

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT”

INTRODUCTION

Since Government of India is currently moving towards organized retail expansion, especially in the food and grocery segments which account for nearly 60 percent of total retail sales in India, which have been growing at annual rates between 16 and 50 percent over the past few years. Also the reports of surveys of “Planet Retail” 2008, shows that the top 10 Indian organized food and grocery retailers grew at the rate of 72.4 percent from 2002 to 2007, it is mainly due to the patronages of the urban people, especially the working class population as the multi brand retailers provide the graded and cleaned, ready for use food grains and groceries where the urban working class need not required to spend time in segregating in selecting the groceries, also in preparation which saves lot of their effort, time. Since food and grocery sales by organized sector firms account for only around 10 percent of total organized sector retail sales, clearly indicating that there is ample scope for scaling up of organized food and grocery retailing. The high growth rate of the top players in India’s organized food and grocery segment suggests that this sector will occupy a growing share of both the food and grocery market and the overall retail market in India.  As such government opening up of FDI in retail is fully justifiable for creation of more facilities for the consumers, more storage facilities for the farm produce reducing the wastage, however government needs to induce and incorporate  stringent protective  laws  as far as FDI retail is concerned, in the event that India is law abiding country which once made a policy will not revert it in future, as such there should be initial safe guards should be incorporated in the system to protect the interest of the farmers from the possible exploitation by the giant retailers and the exploitation of labour by the giant retailers , the interest of the small traders from being forced closure due to competition in pricing, the interest of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) which are in food processing (which account over 3 million in number of units with a turnover of over 250 billion rupees) and ultimately the interest of the majority of the consumers who are common man i.e “amm admi” and also for the government most important is the taxes on the revenues earned by these multi brand giant retailers to be collected in India only.

  

MEASURES TO FIX EXISTING PERILS AMONG VARIOUS SECTIONS OF PEOPLE REGARDING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN RETAIL SECTOR IN A WIN-WIN STRATEGY FOR THE PEOPLE AS WELL AS THE INVESTOR

The statistics shows that the retail trade in organized sector is only 10 % of the total retail sale of around Rs 24 lack cores per annum in India; where as in food and groceries as of now around 95 % retail is un organised and only 5 % is in organised sector which is growing at 70 % per annum in turnover as far as top 10 individual multi brand retail is concerned in five years clearly indicates that the stores are patronized by the urban people especially the working class; the projection of organised multi brand retail sale is expected at around 15 % in a decade which clearly indicates that in a decade over 10% of the small traders are going to closure; but there may be an employment loss is several time the employment generation due to the organized retail sale which was mostly mechanised ( use silo bins for storage, cold storages, as such employment generation through back end infrastructure which may generate over 2% or little more as the workers of the construction company may have work during the construction only) the employment generated at present by the unorganised retail is around 4.5 crores, in the event as per government projections that organised retail may take maximum 15 % of the total retail in 10 years which means there is a loss of employment to 45 lack people in ten years mostly i.e yearly  near about 4.5 lack jobs who are semi skilled people maintaining the accounts, small labour job as helpers (not hamalies / like daily wage labour engaged in the MNREGA works – these employees of retail cannot do hard labour?); apart from the loss of direct employment where these employees who are tuned to the labour of the kirana retail cannot be suitable for other labour jobs; the answer is government has to adjust these workers/ employees of un organised retail through the construction of godowans/ silo bins for storage of the farm produce in the villages/mandals is the only solution, for which again huge invest is required as such government must make FDI’s in the Agriculture sector for back end infrastructure creation as per the government plan for establishing the “rural warehousing” in a more sophisticated manner (as mentioned in my document “Food for All”); Also since the purchase power, storage capacity and holding for long power is vested with the multi brand retail they may do a turnover of 1:50 i.e for every Rs 1 investment may do a turnover of Rs 50 per annum which may be much bigger than the estimates in 10 years by few players; many people has the biggest peril that the farmers and the traders got effected badly, equally the consumers over a period of time as such these issues need to be addressed; As discussed in my previous document titled “Suggestions for Achieving ‘Food For All’...” regarding the ideal & advantageous for all that government itself should be procuring the entire agriculture produce in the larger interest of farmers and people by completely banning the contract banning and the middle men in the system (as was intended/expecting by government the retail giant stores eliminate middlemen exploitation - as such the same advantage should be made to the all the farmers from the exploitation by the middlemen as well as the retail giant stores; also if as per the government the organised retail mainly benefits in collection of sales tax, but in the event if government procure the entire produce and put it to the market there is no chance of single rupee tax escape as government can collect the tax at the source while selling to the traders before it reaches the retailers in the market itself which means all the retail is organised as far as the tax angle is concerned; apart from this fixing minimum and maximum sale of the products will ensure that almost the entire retail is organised as far as food grains and groceries is concerned except the difference of cleaning, sewing etc which is done by the multi brand retail stores, of course now a day’s most of the small traders i.e “kirana stores” also doing the cleaning and sieving before selling; still urban population is patronizing the modern multi brand retail system the same should be continued only in addition to government following the procurement & marketing of the entire agriculture produce along with minimum maximum sale creteria), since the retail stores can occupy a maximum of 10% to 15 % of the total volume of the retail sector over a decade which many not take care of the need of  not more than 25% of the farmers and their produce including their buffer stock in their individual storage godowans so the rest of 75 % farmers will certainly get exploited by middlemen as well as the price war from the retail giant stores during the tough times by release of buffer stock in the possession of the retail giant stores bring the stock at old prices do killing in the market) at minimum procurement price (which should be fixed based on the local conditions and local inputs costs in that village/mandal) from the farmers with providing a minimum of 20 % profit for the farmers and fixing the price for the traders and the retailers, in order to ensure fair trade practices the government must fix the minimum sale price for all the commodities in addition to fixing of maximum sale price. As otherwise since the fixing of the maximum sale price is based on the minimum support price paid to the farmer which is dependent up on the local conditions, the prices of the commodities may vary from place to place. In this connection the traders may procure in bulk from the other places or may sell adulterated food grains. To prevent all these and make fair competition among the traders and retailers at all the places the minimum sale price should be fixed in addition to the maximum price. To ensure all traders will sell at minimum sale price and not exceeding the maximum sale price all the traders and the all retailers should mandatorily maintain the electronic billing system for the sale of non processed raw agriculture products from kirana stores to hyper markets.

This system will ensure fair trade practices even in supermarkets and other hypermarkets. Also this will certainly eliminate the fears of many people as far as the retail food cost is concerned (as many fear that multi brand retail giants will procure the materials from the low cost production countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam etc and import food products in bulk and sell it at cheaper price than the agriculture raw output of India, killing many small retailers and many agriculture producers) in the light of FDI in retail allowing the multi brand giant retail chains in India. As such in order to prevent any such occurrences in future, it will be more ideal that government should make it mandatory that all the multi brand retail stores should procure at least 3/4 of the total agriculture produce sold (both raw agriculture produce as well as processed foods) in the stores (in terms of quantity as well as in terms of value of the products sale) should be procured from the Indian agriculture produce as long as they operate the store in Indian Territory, in addition the multi brand giant retail stores should sell 100 % sale of the agriculture raw produce (like rice, wheat, cereals, vegetables and fruits) at the minimum sale price fixed by the the government for the respective commodities as per the area, as government fixes different rates for different areas of sale based on the local conditions (the cost of agriculture inputs, the climatic conditions). Also all these giant multi brand retail stores should mandatorily sale within the maximum price fixed by the government for the raw agriculture produce (even though they do the cleaning, sieving packing etc of the raw agriculture produce, which may lose certain quantity as waste). This will certainly protect the sale of the agriculture produce as majority of the consumers are in the urban and semi urban areas as many middle class and upper class people live in these areas with more purchase power as they certainly possess more per capta income compared to the rural areas.

Since the prices of the commodities for sale are fixed for minim sale price this will certainly force all the multi brand retailer giants procure the raw agriculture procure locally, otherwise there may be a danger of the damage to small retailers as they cannot compete with them due to less holding capacity and the prices are naturally slightly higher than the multi brand retail, of course these price competition can be minimized only through minimum sale price protection (even though it is a fact that majority of the small “kirana stores are surviving and can survive to some extent mainly due to the credit facility provided by them to the purchasers, as majority of them are established for years in the same locality and majority of the purchasers are purchasing from the same kirana stores for several years, but still every individual purchaser look to save the money when it comes much cheaper at some other place like in the multi brand retail giant stores, as such it is very necessary to fix the minimum sale price of all the raw agriculture produce to protect the interest of many sections). Also this is necessary to protect the interest of the Indian farmers as well as the Indian small retailers.(the best & ideal example to understand the sensitivity of the issue is comparing with telecom sector which also involves crores of people as India has over 85 crore mobile connections; Even though it is very hard to digest but it is a fact that the some private telecom players literally made the BSNL got killed it self, which is once the profit making prestigious organisation of India in Telecom and government, but the FDI in the telecom literally got sick the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), as  the government PSU could not able to compete with them (even though excellent technological & engineering capabilities and supporting staff) in expanding the markets by pumping in the huge investments in the sector as was done by the private players who are competitive till they totally penetrated into the markets, this made  once  having a profit of over Rs 10,000 crores was now in a stage of closure of the organisation with over Rs 13,000 crores loss just in less than a decade, this may certainly repeat in the FDI retail if stringent safe guard laws are not framed (as if a profit making giant organisation reached the level of closure in less than a decade one can imagine the tiny retailers position after over a decade?), even though the FDI in retail is a positive move in bring the standards in many areas such as by constructing more storage facilities, more processing units over a period of time (presuming an investment of 4 billion in FDI retail in 10 years, with government present mandatory condition of 50 % of investment in back end infrastructure creation which means  2 billion which can create sizable infrastructure, but the infrastructure will be for specific use of the investor alone for their own fullest advantage, not certainly for the use of the general purpose storage use by the government. (This FDI in retail  will certainly benefit in creation of jobs both directly and indirectly and little turnover for the construction companies and filling the ideal constructed spaces in the cities and large towns which are ideal due to slum in real estate due to meltdown of global financial markets, but it will be total advantage for the Multi brand Retail Giant’s as there is every possibility they will construct the cold storages and storage godowans in the areas near to where mass agriculture production takes place, they procure the material at very cheap rate the entire quantities in that area and store for long and and sell it far less than the actual produce price after some months which will kill the small farmers and traders due to acute loses due to no market for their genuine sale. example when the bumper crop arrives due to good monsoon the tomato farmers are selling tomato at mere 20 pisa i.e Rs 0.20 per Kg, these multi brand retailers will construct cold storages in areas little far away from these districts where bumper crop arrives and procure the material store it for months as they have large holding capacity both financially as well as storage space, they will sell the material far cheaper than the market price after some months which will be some advantage for the consumers but a great loss to the farmers, as after few months due to weathering conditions the tomato will be sold by the same farmers at Rs 20 per Kg due to the production cost to him may touches over Rs 18 on an average, then the multi brand retailers who got cold storages and who procured from the farmers at 20 pisa per kg during the bumper crop season add transport and storage cost together Rs 3 and may sell tomato at Rs 10 per kg, which means the other farmers will lose the money of Rs 15 per Kg, and many other traders/retailers will acute face loss, as when such a dead cheap it is available people will buy from the multi brand retail stores only coming from faraway places, while the multi brand retailers earn a profit of Rs 7 on kg of tomato for having the holding capacity and storage capacity, the case is same for other commodities also. This can be avoided if and only if there exists a minimum and maximum sale price fixed by the government, in addition government only should procure the entire produce and supply to the farmers- completely banning the contract farming and direct purchase of raw agriculture produce from the farmers or the intermediateries, but once the government makes the mandatory minimum procurement price and fixes the minimum retail sale price and maximum retail price – by the government condition of 50 % of the investment in the back end i.e storage transport etc by the construction of cold storages by the multi brand retail giant stores will be great advantages to the farmers, by getting fair price for them in the event of bumper crop, at the same time great advantage for the consumers as most of the times the commodities are available at prices fixed by the government). Also the government procuring from the farmers the entire produce and marketing will have enormous advantages, as there will not be uniform output of agriculture at all places, in this situation government procurement will help in distributing to other places where there is shortfall of agriculture output to balance the pricing almost the same throughout the country, (like whenever there is short fall of electricity government  procuring the current from other states and ensuring the availability of the power)

Also even though FDI in retail may certainly create a sizable job opportunities both directly as well as indirectly through back end infrastructure, but there exists every danger of exploitation of labour by these multi brand retail as studies conducted by various international organisations at the developing nations where the FDI in retail was opened up clearly indicate that there was exploitation of the labour by the multi brand retail giants by paying less and extracting more from the workers, as such government must fix minimum salaries and maximum working hours per  day/week for working in the multi brand retail stores, in addition government must ensure that that all labour laws will be applicable to all people working in the multi brand retail giant stores, allowing the formation of labour union in each FDI-Multi brand retail giant stores, also government must ensure that minimum of 90 % of the unskilled & semi skilled work force should be mandatorily Indian origin citizens of India, also at least 75 % of the skilled workforce should be Indian origin citizens of India.), Also all the employees should be employed only on permanent bases and certainly not on the contract bases; in addition the government must ensure that all the employees of the multi brand retail giant stores should provide health care for the employees and their families either through providing health insurance cared or by construction of super speciality hospitals in the nearby vicinity where maximum employees living area to provide health care for the individual employees as well as the family members of the employee.

Also there is danger that multi brand foreign retails act by bringing raw food/ food products imported in bulk, especially the cheap processed food which do not have Indian FDA certification may have a negative impact on the youth as youth are mostly attracted to the foreign foods, with danger of every possibility to get addicted to those foods, as there exists a danger that these imported food products may be like the terminator seeds of agriculture promoted by the foreign companies i.e the GM/GE genetically modified seeds which will have the long term impact on the fertility of the soil once they are seeded and the crop is raised, there is no other alternative that only the GM/GE seeds should be able to be cultivated (forcibly) otherwise the once fertile land will remain as barren wasteland, as the GE/GM seeds infuse the killer characteristics into the soil soon after the yielding of the crop before dying, to destroy the fertility and make the soil tune only to the GM/GE seeds in future, likewise these  imported food products will ruin the metabolic system of Indian people as over a period of time they completely need to depend on these imported foods only discarding our traditional Indian foods, as such government must make a policy to ensure that each and every food product either raw or processed which was imported or manufactured outside India should certainly get tested and get approval for each and every batch of the each product by the Indian FDA , in addition the government should mandatorily ensure the sale price of manufactured foods are also fit into the minimum and maximum sale price criteria by making that all manufacturing procedures of same nature for producing similar products will have the minimum and maximum sale price (whether manufactured in India or abroad if product and procedure of manufacture same) otherwise over a period of time India will become the dumping yard of foreign un-standard & un healthy foods resulting in not only killing the traditional foods but also there is every possibility of health hazards of different natures (the majority of the children and youth in the western countries who are being addicted to the junk foods like pizzas and burgers and others foods, are suffering from obesity and many other health complications as majority of the junk foods are manufactured from the agriculture produce of the GE/GM seeds and crops, almost the same is happing in urban India as even though there exits over 1/3 of the children are underweight in India due under nutrition, surprisingly there is an alarmingly high, over 11% of the children are suffering with obesity due to over nutrition, majority of them are urban middle class and high income group mainly due to addicted to the junk foods, so there is every danger that the sub standard foreign foods create an addiction in the children and youth which may have long term impact in the absence of stringent Indian FDA laws to test, allow foreign processed foods,)

Also government should has the advantage of more tax collection like import customs tax on the food materials and the sales tax through the FDI in retail, but government must adopt strict vigilance and appropriate other measures to curtail the since there exists every possibility of inflating the shipping bills and reducing the margins, Also government must ensure that the profits earned by the Multi brand retail stores should be fully taxed in India only; which is possible if and only if there exists a double taxation agreement with the countries where the FDI in retail is coming from, since the multi brand retail stores if invested Rs 1 they will do a turnover of Rs 100 per annum in the realistic terms government expecting an investment of 3 to 4 billion dollars in a decade by the time they will do a turnover of over 400 billion dollars, as such the taxation matter is very important as such government must ensure taking up all measures which makes mandatory condition the profit earned in Indian Soil by the multi brand retail stores should be taxed in India only, as there exists over 51 % of the share by the foreign companies.)

Also government must formulate stringent  laws in regards to the welfare of the employees, in regarding the FDA approvals for imported processed food, in regarding to taxation otherwise like the private telecom players provided much needed expansion of the services to common man which is appreciable,  but at the same time the private operators are literally acting at their own whims & fancies even thought there exits Hon’ble Supreme Court of India made the mandatory bar of the un-wanted promotional calls, none of the private telecom operators followed even there are repeated requests by the individual customers,  in addition at the same time most of the private operators  are literally squeezing the money of the many millions of innocent customers with forced& un known to the customers offerings of unwanted offers of like caller tunes, film news, astrology, chatting, dating, etc deducting the money from the individual pre paid account holders without their knowledge in small amounts ranging from 10 Rs to 50 Rs with at least they are squeezing not less than 50 Rs on average from the customers per month in addition to earning of regular profits (this additional income of all the private operators touches as high as over Rs 1 billion per month (near about Rs 5,500 crores per month which is around Rs 63,000 crores per annum), as near about 83 crors mobile connections exist in India, every individuals cannot go several times to the operators local offices or the consumer forums and the courts for this amount as they have to waste valuable time energy on this, of course they will win the case), the same kind of extortion in appropriate different manner may happen in the multi brand giant retail  stores in case proper systems are not places at the initial stages with non application of stringent implementation of laws, Also even though the private telecom operators knew the consequences of radiation emission from the cell towers causing serious health hazards they did not bother to follow the rules as was followed in the western countries and installed high power cell towers everywhere to save money with a single motto to earn profit and recover very speedy the investment at the earliest (instead of keeping many smaller frequency towers as operation costs will increase in case of more number of towers which reduces the profits marginally) as of now most of the private telecom operators are acting more or less like the media (even though TRAI telecom regulatory authority of India has full control over them), presuming that they only have to frame the self regulations, this kind of situation may arise in the case of multi brand giant retail stores, as they are big and mighty and can influence any section of governance in India as always the same government may not exists, unlike China which ever government in power the same communist principles will be applicable with stringent implementation of laws and stringent punishments, also the case is same with other western countries where the law implementation is stringent and the culprits are brought to justice very quickly, but the case is not the same is India being a socialist democratic country, mostly run by collation governments  till next few terms, laws implementation are not so stringent as compared to other countries of course the laws are very stringent in most of the areas, also there is certainly time taking activity as far as bring the culprits to justice, best example the Bhopal gas incidence)

As FDI in retail is will hold to be a good move of the government, if and only if government fixing the minimum sale price and maximum sale price can ensure that fair trade practices occur in India at all times coupled with mandatory Indian FDA approval for each batch of each imported processed food sale in India as mandatory pre condition to sale in India to protect the interest of farmers, small retailers, people of Indian from having healthier,good foods all time.

Also once announced FDI in retail going back will lead to downgrade of the image of India in the foreign countries as well as downgrade the confidence of  the global investors in other FDI sectors, as such the FDI in retail should be continued with stringent protection laws incorporate with appropriate checks and balances fulfilling the larger dream of the UPA to really benefit the people of the nation through reduction in the prices through bringing fair competition without any scope for foul play, and also creation of more employment opportunities with all safe guards for the employees with the entire tax on the sale should be collected in India only for better revenue generation as compared to unorganised retailing in which maximum scope for zero billing trade.  Also it is a fact that capitalists are ruthless people as majority of the capitalists follow the universal principal that they should earn more money at any cost, even at the cost of their own life, adopting the principle of live in money, eat money die in earning money only, they feel capital has no colour, no smell, no morals, no values, no sentiments and no religion. As such Congress party who always vouches and advocates for the welfare, betterment of common people, down trodden, always following the path of the “Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi Ji” should need to advocate & vouch for welfareisim and social justice, social equality for all, has to take up this issue at this initial stage for the larger benefit of the people of the country as well as party for framing, incorporating stringent laws in the FDI retail system. Otherwise there every danger of rise in the unrest of the people (which is like a massive wild fire in the light of these social movements just based on the government reports on corruption, but if it really touches their lives  by cutting the food in their plate directly due to government policy over a period of time the unrest will certainly un stoppable), which may be also be capitalised by the naxalisim, and the country may turn into another countries of middle east, but unlike middle east countries controlling the unrest in India is really a tough task, almost is next to impossible, due the size of population in our country. As such it is more ideal and appropriate for the for the UPA government under congress leadership should take appropriate necessary steps to safe guard the interests of various sections of people while allowing the FDI in Retail.

NEED FOR PRIVATE INVESTMENT; INCLUDING FDI IN AGRICULTURE SECTOR FOR PROVIDING CHEAPER INPUTS LIKE WATER, FERTILIZERS AND LARGER STORAGE FACILITIES GODOWNS FOR FERTILIZERS, SILO BINS FOR STORAGE OF FOOD GRAINS, COLD STORAGES FOR STORAGE OF VEGETABLES AND FRUITS- APART FROM FDI IN RETAIL WHICH HAS LIMITED TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL ORGANISATIONAL USE & BENEFIT

As we all knew that there exists a huge gap in the agriculture output and the storage capacity, processing capacity and also the inputs supply is not on par with the demand, as a result there is huge loss to the agriculture output it is as high as over 30 % of the agriculture produce is getting wasted and getting rotten without having the scope for use due to lack of storage facility and being exposed to atmosphere with draining in rains and cold winters making them to get rotten due to bacterial and fungal formation and many fruits and vegetables are rotten during the excessive crop yield due to lack of cold storages to enhance the shelf life and also lack of food processing industries in the vicinity of the massive cropping areas, all these leading to short supply in the food grains and vegetables leading to high costs  for the  consumers; all these indicates huge investments required to create the infrastructure for the agriculture sector like the storage godwans for fertilizers, storage godowans for food grains, silo storage bins (modern storage godowans), cold storages, rail sidings for the godowans, market yards, etc. Since the government allowed the FDI in retail with mandatory condition that 50 % of the investment should be on the back end infrastructure creation by the multi brand giant retail stores, which will serve their individual company purpose only. Otherwise the government’s claim of the FDI in retail will serve the saving of 30 % of the wastage of food products will be a disastrous to the entire small and marginal farmers as well as small traders with such a huge holding capacity by the private giants will do killing of the small traders and farmers as per the government claim that the multi brand retail giant stores occupy only a maximum of 6 to 15 % of the total trade in 10 years from now (as of now 6 % of the retail trade is organised and rest 94 % is semi organised and un organised sector), if 6 % of the retail traders holds near about 30 % of the total produce (the wastage which is happening as of now due to lack of godowns), then they will undoubtedly do killing of small farmers and small trades by playing ruthless cost gambling in the procurement procuring the agriculture produce at cut-throat prices as well as in retail sale by selling their produce are no where mach to even the procurement cost of the whole sale traders leaving alone the retailer traders and the margins and the cost of transport of the wholesaler as well as retailer as and when appears to be profitable to them - happen or not- can be left to individuals wisdom?  As such it is not true that the entire investment of the multi brand retailers is not sufficient to cater the needs of the storage except storage for their personal company needs, which may account for only less than 10 % of the total agriculture produce (still can play a vital role in price game as such government must safe guard the interest of the small and marginal farmers as well as the small traders by fixing the minimum support price for procurement by government, banning direct sale by farmers and banning contract farming for retailing, and also fixing the minimum and maximum sale price for the agriculture raw produce sale), the idea of having more modern storage facilities is to reduce the food prices by making more availability in the market by reducing the wastage due to lack of storage of the agriculture produce, as of now the annual agriculture produce in India is over 350 million metric tonnes but surprisingly India has only about 110 million metric tonnes of storage godowns with private godowns account for only 15 million metric tonnes. As such the government must urgently open up the FDI in agriculture sector for the creation of the back end infrastructure is concerned only. Also the government must allow only 49 % FDI in agriculture sector for providing the agriculture inputs like the, water for cultivation through irrigation projects, through cloud seeding, through solar power operated bore wells and power generation in agriculture fields through wind energy etc, fertilizers (both chemical and bio), bio pesticides etc require huge investments to produce and supply to the farmers. To make everything by the government investment as per the existing demand is next to impossible to achieve in the at least next few decades; the only alternative is to bring huge private investment, but it is not possible to bring such a huge investments by Indian private investors, as such government must open up these areas in the agriculture sector to foreign direct investment (FDI) up to 49 % only to ensure that Indian partner has more say; since there will not be any risk to the foreign investors in the agriculture sector once the government makes it a policy that all agriculture inputs and outputs are routed through government and government supplies the inputs by payment guarantees from the government and the output is procured by the government from the farmers, as such the government  mandatorily store in the storage facility, this will ensure that the payments for the storage is paid by the governments.  

Also as far as the cloud seeding for water supply is concerned payments should be as per the total rain water collected, also the FDI in weather modification (cloud seeding) is more possible the ground was already prepared by government indirectly; since the governments has made a great move of allowing 49 % FDI in the “aviation sector” which will boost the investors towards cloud seeding if government opens the FDI in this sector, since the cloud seeding is mainly dependent on airplanes spilling the chemicals in the clouds to covert the moisture in the cloud to become water droplets and fall as rain water.  Also similarly the ground water lifting through solar powered motors with payment on the bases of quantity of water dispensed will certainly the FDI as government is paying for the water. Also as far as the storage godowans for food grains is concerned the Silo bins which are the most most modern, efficient and effective way of storing food grains minimizing the wastages due to pests, insects, and wastage in the handling and saving lot of fumigants and the gunni bags and can be stored for longer period; the payments are guaranteed for the investors as stock of the total agriculture produce is procured by the government from the Village Agriculture Co-operative Associations from all the farmers, making it the government responsibility for storage of the agriculture produce; the case is same with regards to the cold storages for storing the fruits and vegetables. All these measures lead to more supply of food grains, fruits & vegetables in the market which can make the prices stable at all times.

As such the FDI in agriculture sector will certainly boost the economy and economic growth are will certainly be in double digits; which means more jobs, better lively hood for the people in India.

  

MEASURES FOR ACHIEVING GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT IN FUTURE “WITHOUT FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT”

In fact FDI is required for India for few years only; as once government takes appropriate measures making mandatorily all sections of the people behave with responsibility especially the political class, the bureaucratic class and the business class people by making the family trees of the political leaders , ex-political leaders  both sitting/non sitting elected representatives from village panchayat to parliament and ward leaders to national leaders cutting across party lines, their assets, their bank accounts, their investments by obtaining the self declaration under the affidavit; similarly the bureaucrats from the local government to central government, and the business establishments all companies as per individual share holders, partnership firms as per partners, all the HUF business establishments, all propriety business establishments; all data should be correlated and segregated and stored as per the PAN card number, Voter Id card number; in addition ensuring the banks  should re register on bio metric bases of all the active accounts, apart from the new accounts both  savings and current accounts, and integrate the core banking data of all the banks, which will eliminate all factious accounts (need to take stringent severe punishments for accounts with same finger prints in different names or withdraw of money from other accounts on hearing this notification of re registration of accounts through bio metric finger prints as it is the duty of the branch manager soon on the notification by government must collect the biometric finger print of the account holder, freezing the online transfer till the account is biometrically activate – mandatory affidavit with digital photo of the depositor in the bank counter by individuals depositing money more than Rs 10,000 cash in any account regarding the source of income, in addition restriction of cash withdraw limit to Rs 10,000, all transactions either through online or cheque only and mandatory all the bills like electricity, water bill, petrol bill, municipal tax, telephone bill, internet bill, maintenance bill, house rent, income tax etc should be through cheque payment only; in addition all purchases above Rs 10,000 should be through bank card only; all air ticket purchases through bank card in the airline counter, through bankers check payment through the travel agent; all the bullion above Rs 5,000 through bank card or check) will provide money sufficient enough for all the infrastructure development activates without any requirement for FDI; in addition government making it mandatory that all the investments made in the business to be provided with affidavit for the source of income; with all sorts of affidavits filled by the individuals are legally binding, with stringent punishments for the wrong information in the affidavit; in addition governments should able to get the tax collected in the present taxations system to the fullest extent by ensuring the entire produce of agriculture both raw as well as processed is taxed in the retail through the sales tax by completely controlling the “zero bill trade” through using the Central petro fuel network authority (CPFNA) and Central materials movement authority (CMMA) and Central toll tax authority (CTTA) by providing the state specific and sector specific bar coded forms for each manufacturer and trader to fill the form and submit online and get confirmation for movement of the material from the manufacturing unit or from the traders godowan.(as stated in my document in the “simple and effective reforms for controlling corruption and delivering good governance”), in addition collection of various taxes by the local governments, state governments and the central governments on the business establishments by total integration of data of all the tax payers of all districts and all states will certainly ensuring none will be escaped from the tax evasion in one or the other place in one or other manner, which will provide continues money supply year after year for taking care of the operational expenses of the projects and programmes even without any need for FDI in any sector only thing may be required is the technology transfers in some sectors.

 CONCLUSION

Since the surveys & statistics regarding the organised retail in India especially the organised retail in food sector reveals that there is an increase of over 74 %  in a span of 5 years, which clearly indicates that the urban pollution is India are patronizing the organized retailing due to the fact that the organized retail will provide the ready to use food grains, vegetables & fruits without need to spending time on grading, sieving etc, as the organised retail is doing all these and processing the food grains to make it ready to use condition. As such the governments decisions in allowing FDI in Retail is absolutely justifiable in the event of patronisation by the urban population especially the urban working class. But at the same time the investments likely to be made by the multi brand retail giant stores for the back end infrastructure development will only be advantageous to them at large and to some extent to the farmers and to some extent the contractors and the labour working for the contractors; since as per the government version that it will not affect either the farmers and the small traders who are over 93 % at present and the organised retail may grow in a decade occupying only another 8 % of the share of the un organised retail trade occupying about 15 % of the total retail trade which will cater the needs of 25 % of the agriculture produce including 10 % buffer stock holding of the multi brand retail giants due to their financial, storage capacity for holding the stock for long; if it holds good then government needs to encourage more FDI in Agriculture input supply as well as back end infrastructure creation for the rest of the 75 % of the total produce as as of now only 1/3 of the total agriculture produce has the storage godowans; also in order to ensure fair trade and remove the perils of many farmers and small traders in the un organised retail government should mandatorily fix the minimum procurement price, minimum and maximum sale price of the food grains, vegetables and fruits for protecting the interests of the farmers, traders and consumers in the event of large storage long holding capacity of food grains. Similarly the workers’ wages, the working hours, labour laws PF, ESI, Health care of employees, the tax collection for profit earned by these multi brand giant retail stores in India with having double taxation avoidance agreements with the countries from where the FDI is coming to India in the retail sector etc will certainly make the move of the government in this regard a truly national boon; in addition government must encourage the FDI in agriculture to make more food grains availability by providing more water for cultivation through the cloud seeding/ weather modification, water supply through creation of power generation privately through non conventional sources, the fertilizer manufacturing and supply, the bio pesticides manufacturing and supply and also the back end infrastructure creation like Silo storage bins for food grains storage, the clod storages for the vegetables & fruit storage and also the cold storage transport vehicles etc will certainly save the hard made agriculture produce to a great extent from wastage due to lack of storage facilities; which will ensure more supplies of food grains and vegetables in the market not only in the organised sector but also in the majority of the un organised sector ensuring stable prices of the food grains and vegetables at all times; in addition the cloud seeding will certainly make more water availability in the reservoirs which will enable more power production in the hydro power, which means more industrial output due to more power availability in addition to reduction in the pollution levels due to reduction in use of coal for thermal power plants; and also making it mandatory that people pay their payments through the check and making every bank deposit above Rs 10,000 in cash against legally bind able affidavit for the source of income, and making all purchases above Rs 10,000 through bank card or bank check will ensure more fund supply to the government; in addition correlation and integration of data of all people in politics from village to national level cutting across party lines, all elected members, ex members  from the panchayat to the parliament; all leaders of all parties from village level to national level, and also the same is the case with bureaucrats, civil servants from the lowest in the village to the highest in the central government, similarly it will be more ideal and appropriate that judiciary should follow the same, also the individual business persons and share holders in all the companies, firm, HUF, or property business regarding their family tree and the assets and bank accounts; in addition government fully controlling the materials movement in the country by creating central materials movement authority to monitor the movement of all manufactured and all trading goods from one place to other by providing the bar coded format to get filled online and obtain permission for vehicle movement which can be monitors through creation and integration of Central toll tax authority through the creation and integration of the central petro fuels authority for integration of petrol pumps to issue petrol only on reading the electronic vehicle registration and driving licence; which will completely eliminate the zero billing trading and under invoicing to some extent which provides the revenues perennially for the governments which enables the governments to stop accepting the FDI to the country and self development occurs to our own sources which makes our country self sufficient and debt free over a period of time making India the real super power nation

                                                  ***

                                          JAI HIND

                                           

INDIAN RAILWAYS- GOOD GOVERNANCE

  As we all know that ‘Indian Railways’ is fourth largest Railway in the world and largest public transport carrier in our country also known  as “Life line of India”. It is amazing to know that the total distance covered by Indian Railways every day equals three & half times the distance to moon. Indian Railways has about 14,300 trains and over 7,000 railway stations with track of about 63,028 route kilometres with about 1.60 million people as its employs, carrying over 13 million passengers and over 1.3 million tonnes of freight every day. As we all knew that Rail travel is known for its comfortable journey, economy & affordability and moderately fast mode of transport and also comparatively safer than other economical modes of transport. Because of these prime reasons millions of people prefer to travel by train. The comparative analysis of other mode of transport will substantiate this claim. 

As we all knew that Air transport being the fastest mode of travel, it is expensive as the operational costs of the air lines and infrastructure for air connectivity is very high. Due to the higher cost, this mode of transport is mostly meant the higher income group, as it is certainly not within the reach of the common persons in India being the country with more than two thirds population belongs to middle class and Below Poverty Line for which Air travel is a sheer luxury. The air travel is mostly patronized by the individuals as well as the family members of netas (Politicians), babus (Bureaucrats), takedars (Contractors) and Business Persons and the Business house Employees, most of them directly or indirectly at the cost of public money i.e at the cost of common man, as mostly the cost of travel is paid by either the exchequer or mostly corrupt money, also due to the reason that travel expenditure in the business income is not taxable. But it is a fact to know/ admit that air connectivity is a sign of progressive development of the nation as it attracts lot of business investment, which means lot of employment generation, more number of tourists across the globe travelling for various reasons generating lot of revenue and employment in the regions directly or indirectly (Ref: 1***).

If we look into common mode of transport i.e road transport which is ideal for short distances as far as the passenger transport is concerned because we all know that condition of roads most places in the country are known for their roughness, bumpy, patches, unfinished, and mostly prone to accidents due to maintenance failure of the vehicles, due to human errors as drivers may not be that skilled and prone to various habits like smoking, chewing pan/gutka, consumption of alcohol while driving, drowsing in night driving due to fatigue. All the above reasons make it clear that road journey for long distances are risky, sometimes unsafe journeys. Also most of the long journeys are very time consuming and tedious for the passengers as well. It is a fact that many state governments and also to some extent central government allocation of funds for construction, up-gradation of the roads is not encouraging due various reasons as national highways are built by Central government and State highways are built by state highways. It is an open secret as was stated in many survey reports that roads building and highway in-fracture sector having highest scope for corruption in the country resulting in poor conditions of the roads to add to this vulnerability most state transport departments are known for their corrupt practices in issuing fitness certificates for transport of vehicles even though vehicles are not in perfect motorable condition (Ref: 2***).Keeping in view of the risks and difficulties mentioned in road transport and air transport, Indian railways is the only alternative to all modes of passenger transport, as such it is being patronized over 13 million people preferring to travel by railways.

As we all know that Government of India has a separate Ministry to run the railways which has a board Indian Railways, have a separate budget for the railways to the tune of 2 lack core Rs. The budget is mainly for the running and maintaining the existing railway facilities like rail stations, railway lines, rail locos and also for expansion of rail lines, construction, up gradation of the Rail stations, manufacturing of railway wagons for goods/passenger.

As stated the 16 lakh employees in the railway includes technical, non technical, administration, skilled, semi skilled and unskilled workers working round the clock to serve the best to the people of the country. The major income from the railways comes from the goods transport sector, but the main purpose of the railway is to serve the public by providing public carrying from several destinations coveting a travelling length of over 1 cr kilometres touching over seven thousand Rail Stations. In order to facilitate the convenience to the individual passengers to make their travel hassle free Indian Railways has made a facility to reserve the seat to travel by making their travel booking in advance, railway board operates thousands of railway reservation centres in different places covering from small towns to metro cities in the country, apart from the facility of the online computer reservation facility allowing individuals to make reservation from any place any time.

In spite of the maximum efforts from the railway board to facilitate for the best operation without causing inconvenience to the passengers by improving the facilities and increasing the number of locos and number of wagons (passenger coaches) to meet the demand of passenger travel, it is a fact that still there is a long gap between the existing facilities especially the demand for availability of seats for passenger travel due to shortage of rail coaches as well as rail locos due to various reasons. As a result there exists a long waiting lists in passenger reservation for travel in most of the sectors, especially during vacation seasons for the schools, colleges, universities, and more particularly during festive seasons reasons and also in weekends as many people travelling from cities to small towns mostly employees thanks to countries economic liberalisation and development activities creating employment opportunities taking place across the country.

In order to facilitate the travel by train in case of urgencies and emergency situation for individuals travel due to non availability of confirmed seats due to advanced reservation of seats, Indian Railway board has created a facility called Emergency Quota in the passenger reservation system, extended to public servants and public representatives like MLA/MP and to the common public to avail this facility through the above persons, EQ to be released on certain criteria making travel by train to reach the destinations in moderately quick and economical way. The emergency situations includes attending the medical needs, tragedy in the family or relatives or tragedy due to natural calamities, or for service persons like military, police and some government persons attending their sudden/ emergency duties in the interest of the people of the country. This facility is extended to public representatives like MLA and MP for their individual use and also for the benefit of the common public who elected the representative, who can approach them with request for urgency of travel in railway to be forwarded by the MP/MLA to the railway authority for extending reservation for that particular passenger/s perform travel to fulfil his/her need in emergency situation.

But it is an OPEN SECRET that the EQ facility (emergency quota) has been mis utilised by some of eligible people irrespective of the protocol as per the railway reservation EQ knowingly or un knowingly, also mostly mis-utilised by organised people with vested interests comprising of  some employees of railways, some travel agents some middle men. In the country the numbers of public representatives are 790 MP’s and 4120 MLA’s from 28 states and 7 union territories and 452 MLC’s from 6 states. Statistics shows that daily over 130 lack people are travelling in railways with substantial number of seats are en marked and need to reserve in advance. Due to the shortage of available number of seats in the trains many people who plans to travel unplanned irrespective of their social status are in search of MLA/MP/ Officials/ Touts and  managing to get avail the EQ facility through some sources & means even though their travel is not having any urgency/any emergency need, sometimes people in real emergencies who cannot afford to travel by air, and road journey make take much longer than Train journey has to depend on EQ has no other option left except to approach the above mentioned. It is a fact that EQ facility mostly in the name of MP/MLA has been mis-utilised by some organised people with vested interests. Due to demand for seats is more than available, coupled with people’s desperateness/urgency to travel in the trains, the EQ facility becoming a major source of income for some railway agents, touts and probably some staff of the railways, causing utter inconvenience to the common passenger as in case of non existence of  EQ requests, or the seats marked for EQ remain vacant due to non eligible passenger requests in that train then the seats marked for EQ can be distributed to Reserved passengers with Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) and Wait listed status passengers.

The existing prevailing system of EQ facility has been defeated/ degraded the spirit of EQ system for lack of leak proof, systematic approach and failure to identify the bonafidness of the request of the EQ requesting authority as well as the need of urgency of the passenger to avail the EQ, accountability of the EQ recommendation authority, as it is an open secret that majority of EQ requesting passengers doesn’t fit / eligible for the EQ release criteria, and also partly due to the discretion of the railway EQ authorities not being used properly. As such, there is an urgent need to fix these shortcomings/lacunas of the railway EQ system by fixing the drawbacks/malady, through technology by creating an automation system of EQ realise facility, enforcing all EQ requesting authorities to follow a uniform requesting procedure with mandatory accountability regarding the request whether the request is genuine by mandatory mention of the propose of the travel of the EQ seeking passenger. Also the new system should reducing/minimizing the desecration of the railway EQ staff, also should eliminate the burden on the railway staff.  

In order to fix the issue of mis utilization of the railway EQ facility there should be a common single format for the request for EQ by the eligible EQ requesting parties, similar to the railway reservation form containing the name/ all names of the passenger/s, PNR, origination and destination of travel, phone number and/or residence address the EQ seeking passenger belong to his constituency or outsider  by providing mandatory  mention of the voter id number/ pan card number/ addhar card number, more specifically the purpose of urgency for travel of EQ seeking traveler for travel of self, family, relative if the travelling candidates is the guardian of the relative for any medical situation/emergencies, or for any sudden tragedy in the family, or emergency government duty for all government/service personal etc.

Also it should be made mandatory that MP/MLA representing the lower house should utilize majority of the EQ facility only and only for self or the people belonging to the constituency, however in exceptional cases they can recommend non constituency passengers. The ratio of local and non local recommendations should be strictly in the ratio of 80:20 i.e 80 % for the people belong to the constituency and 20 % for the people belong to the non-constituency, however the MP/MLA can utilise 100 % for the constituency people, in no case non local should cross 20 % of the recommendations eligible to make. There is no restriction of constituency for the MP/MLC representing the upper house being elected by the elected representatives / nominated by government, also there should be additional quota of 25 % for allocating to non-local category for EQ requesting authorities such as the constitutional authorities and ministers of the state and central. The system should be designed in a manner that that first priority should be given to the EQ requests having the voter ID number/ ADHAR number (the data of the voter ID, ADHAR should be up loaded to EQ automation system assembly segment wise, parliament segment wise for the identification of recommended people belong to the constituency of the MLA/MP for asserting local / non local of the constituency of the EQ requesting MP/MLA)

Second most important thing is to fix the number of quota of seats for each eligible EQ recommending authority, all government officials, and all public representatives. Each MP/MLA should be given the Quota based on the population they represent; i.e for every one lack population 100 seats per anum should be fixed. The quota utilisation, extension of quota is subjected to scrutiny of the utilisation of the EQ facility by the individual EQ recommending authority by a committee comprising of officials of railway board, representatives from the people, and the people from judiciary.

The railways should issue/provide bar coded stickers to all the eligible recommending authorities. The bar coded stickers should be issued in paper sticker to be affixed on the EQ requesting from to obtain EQ released based on protocol / availability, alternatively the EQ requesting authority can apply online to avail EQ. All the eligible authorities who wish to utilise EQ facility should register / apply online for getting the bar-coded stickers. As far as he public representatives are concerned as a standard procedure the Assembly / Parliament should send request of proposal for the bar coded sticker coupons for the MP/MLA as per the strength of the houses, number of bar coded coupons issued in the individual MP/MLA name based on the strength of the population represented by the individual MP/MLA (so that the bar code coupon prevent misuse by any other persons for being each coupon is constituency specific pre loaded in the EQ automation system with the details of the MP/MLA, which the EQ system allow access to the data of the people in the constituency as per census data of the population in that constituency, the EQ automation system designed to allow constituency local and non local requests  in 80 : 20 ratio for each MLA/MP). The Railway board should issue & deliver to the parliament and to state assembly the bar coded sticker coupons as per the eligibility of MP/MLA to avail the EQ facility.  It should be mandatory that parliament and assembly provide the details of official phone number of MP/MLA,  their spouse, children and parents and attendant of the MP/MLA to the railway board to be pre loaded in the EQ system for preventing the mis utilisation of EQ facility of railway for the KIN-KITH of the MP/MLA (attendant to MP/MLA should be allowed to use EQ facility maximum six times in year family member two time in a year other than when accompanying MP/MLA in non emergency criteria situations, however the restriction not applicable in medical, other emergencies). All other civil servants and other employees of Railway should apply online to get the barcode instantly. In case the civil servants and government employee’s mis utilise (for KIN-KITH, also without proper purpose) the facility of EQ should be withdrawn and should be subjected to disciplinary action.

Also the 790 MP’s (545 LOK SABHA + 245 RAJYA SABHA )/ 4120 MLA’s (IN 28 STATES AND 7 UNION TERRITORIES) and 452 MLC’s  (6 STATES) should be provided, bar coded sticker coupons quarterly  once i.e once in every three months with validity of the coupons only for 90 days, with clear mention/print of period of validy on the coupons for more clarity and removing any confusion,  based on the total eligibility of number of coupons by the MP/MLA per annum based on the population they represent, which divided into four quarters, all lapsed quota of coupons and should not be carrying forward to the next quarter (based on the population if the number of coupons given for an MP is 1000 then that MP should be given 250 coupons every quarter that are valid in that quarter i.e in the span of 90 days only).The unused coupons in that quarter should be automatically lapsed on the completion of the quarter in the EQ automation system, to bring more responsibility to the EQ requesting authorities should surrender to the unused coupons to the IR for obtaining the fresh i.e on the expiry of that quarter; It will ideal that all EQ requesting authorities should maintain an inventory of EQ requests in a standard format that was supplied by IR to all EQ requesting authorities, containing the details of EQ request passenger name, ID card number, date of journey, pnr, date of request, coupon number etc and submit the copy to the IR for issue of fresh coupons in the next quarter, which will certainly enable the EQ requesting authority to use the coupons appropriately. Also it should be mandatory that the bar coded coupons should be pasted on the request form every time to authenticate the bonafideness of the request to be accepted by the EQ automation system. The entire bar coded coupons are designed and loaded in the EQ system as per the individual eligible EQ requesting authority wise containing the details about the EQ requesting authority, their territory. As such even on plain paper the EQ request can be made by writing the mandatory details required as per the EQ requesting form. All the hand writing on the EQ requesting form or the plain paper written details should be mandatorily made in bold capital letters to ensure the details are readable to all the EQ releasing staff.

Also the EQ automation system should have inbuilt in the software to facilitate for create an online account for all eligible EQ requesting authorities by providing proper security system for EQ request to be availed in the lines of online banking transactions by making the EQ requesting authority to send an sms from the official mobile phone to get the password for each single request/ transaction to be made online preventing mis utilisation or protected from hacking. This system also facilitates to know the details of the EQ availed instantly on the official phone number of the MP/MLA and details of balance number of EQ coupons left over etc in the account of the EQ requesting authority. And also it should be ideal in order to encourage online request of the EQ, the online requesting should be given more preference than fax or personal drop box EQ requests for more authenticity as well reduction of manual entry of the details. The ratio of EQ facility preference for online to manual request should be 60:40 percentages of the available EQ quota within the eligible.

All elected MP/MLA representing the lower house should be provided the bar coded stickers based on the fixed criteria i.e on the number of people in the constituency (per lack of population 100 coupons per annum) thus doing justice to all the people in the country as some MP’s represent merely less than one lack population where as there are MP’s who represent more than 20 lack population. By providing coupons as per percentage of population the people of the each constituency will be more benefited to the people of each constituency rather than distributing EQ coupons equally to all MP/MLA irrespective of population they represent and also for proper utilisation. So providing the EQ facility quota for the MP/MLA based on the population the MP/MLA is very most ideal, effective and appropriate. In case of MP/MLC representing the upper house the number of total number of bar coded coupons should be equal to every individual MP/MLC representing the state. The number of coupons per annum per individual upper house members should be calculated based on the total value of the coupons of the for the MP based on the state assembly coupons total number and the MLC also based on the state assembly coupons total number. And the nominated members to the upper house should be given fixed number as decided by the upper house on the average of the MP/MLC. The restriction of the constituency will not be applicable to MP/MLC of the upper house, the state as a whole is counted for with the local state and non local state in the 80:20 ratios. However the restriction of local and non local will not be applicable to the nominated members of upper house. The local constituency/state restriction will not be applicable to the union cabinet ministers and ministers of state governments. Also it will be ideal to allocate 25 % more coupons than the eligible number to the individual MP/MLA/MLC who was performing the duties as a minister in the union government or state government.  

Also the individual travel of the elected representative MP/MLA should not be counted in the EQ quota. (However the people and family members accompanying should be counted in the quota in case of EQ availed along with individual travel. As s standard procedure all MP/MLA should not recommend any individual passenger name for EQ request for more than four times (two up & two down journeys) in a year. Also the MP/MLA should be restricted to utilise the facility of the EQ for the family i,e spouse, children and parents only twice in a year, unless otherwise there exists a real emergency for them which should be subjected to proof by the medical authorities/ revenue authorities at the end of trip within 30 days, as the EQ automation system has to have inbuilt software designed to decline the EQ request for more than twice requests for any individual in the quarter i.e 90 days  for more than eligible requests for family.) Also the EQ system is designed to sort out names from the EQ requests preventing all passengers other than the EQ requesting authorities travelling them self should be restricted to maximum of four times otherwise some individuals may use different MP/MLA requests many times to avail the EQ facility repeatedly based on the name and ID proof.

All the EQ requests should be mandatorily subject to the bar-coded sticker pasted on the request in case of physical sticker coupon or the online request for online request. For release of EQ the EQ automation system will recognize only authenticated bar coded requests. This system of sticker bar coding will prevent / control maximum fraud that was occurring as of now in the fax system as there is no guarantee that the EQ requested is a boanified request which is authentic /authorised by the requesting authority and also eliminate any mis utilize of letter head of the EQ requesting authority by any un authorised persons. The online request will be more authenticated as each EQ requesting authority will be provided with a password to operate the EQ request every time after logging in the EQ system, the pass word will be sent to the official mobile phone instantly for each EQ request  after login to the EQ automation system soon after entering the basic details of the passenger in the  online EQ requesting from, through an SMS to the official mobile phone of the EQ requesting authority from the the EQ automation center for authentication of the request. This password should be entered for finishing of EQ request.

All the requests need to read by the bar-code reader in the railway EQ facility center in the respective region. All the EQ facility centers should integrated and be centralised in Delhi for the release of EQ and the discretion authority of the railway board officials should be marginalised by total computerised automation of the EQ release criteria based on the order of priority of the protocol of the EQ realize facility. The centralisation of the EQ release facility similar to the case of the issue of tickets through central computer system will enable Civil Servant / MP/MLA to make request for travel in any party of the country, also can make request from any part of the country within his allotted quota for his self or for his constituency people/ non local subjected to restrictions, in any railway zone/region.

The central computer system should be made in such a manner that all the Civil Servant/MP/MLA should be given priority in their railway region being a local representative i.e in the trains originating from the region as well EQ quota in the region, compared to MP/MLA from other regions request being non-local. The automation system should sort out the requests in 70:30 for local railway zone and non local railway zone of the EQ requesting authority.

The centralised EQ release facility will certainly benefit the people in the country, as people travel from one place to the other, in case suddenly emergency situation arises in the home town, at individuals home, most of the cases the individual does not know other than MLA/MP of his home town, he can contact over phone and request them to facilitate for EQ travel from the faraway place to their home town, which will be possible through this centralised facility of EQ release where any MP/MLA request from any part in the country can be honored subjected to conditions. This facility will provide great help for the travellers in emergency situations, also a lot of trust and confidence in the elected representative.

The centralised computerisation of EQ facility with barcoded system will be more transparent than the existing system, as it is not the railway officials releasing the EQ decide the release of the EQ, but the computer system with inbuilt transparency and criteria for the release of EQ based on the hierarchy of protocol of release. It also eases the job of the staff working in the EQ department of the Railways as the system itself will decide the priority of the EQ requests received and the staff can easily feed the data of the eligible EQ forms that was sorted out by computer system, thus eliminating corruption, bias, nepotism, favoritism and fraud in the release of EQ. The EQ computer system itself eliminate the family members utilizing the facility of EQ request by more than one time, under any EQ request of any EQ requesting authority request, (as majority of the public feel and also mostly true that EQ facility will be useful for the family and kin/kit of the EQ requesting authority). It is for the individual EQ requesting authority to utilise the EQ facility for the purpose it is meant for (being clearly mention in the EQ form the need for recommending passenger travel purpose), which will be subjected to scrutiny half yearly. In case found that the EQ facility being mis-utilised by the concerned EQ requesting authority, the EQ requesting facility of the individual authority should be suspended by de freezing the bar-coded stickers in the system itself and also the EQ requesting authority should be barred from obtaining new bar-coded stickers and utilising the EQ request facility for at least two years.

Also the number of requests of the individual EQ requesting authority should be subjected to maximum of four seats request per a train within the quota of the EQ of the individual in any single day per single train however big may be in the protocol of the EQ which is possible only through EQ automation. Also the EQ should be released only at the boarding station of the passenger subjected to the availability (in no case the EQ release of the PNR starting from one station should be released from the next station i.e a Delhi – Howrah ticket should not get EQ released from Meerut or other place in case the eligibility of the EQ request fails in the system due to hierarchy protocol in the system, otherwise the purpose of EQ and the system of EQ will be un doubtedly subjected to mis utilisation. Only in very exceptional cases the head of the EQ Department in railway board can release the EQ from other stations other than originating station of the PNR, but should record the reasons for every such use of the extraordinary facility).

Also it should be mandatory for the passenger utilizing EQ facility should carry same photo ID card which was mentioned in the EQ from. Otherwise the passenger should be subjected to imposition of penalty/fine equivalent to the cost of the ticket on providing any other ID proof other than that was mentioned in the EQ form otherwise the passenger should be subjected to off loading from the train in the next station.

Also it should be made mandatory that the data of the EQ released should be kept on the web site of the railway for at least 90 days after the EQ release date for ensuring more transparency and proper utilisation as it will be subjected to public scrutiny. The data should be date wise, train no wise, state wise, MP/MLA wise, all EQ Requesting authority wise.

Also in continuation to my views and suggestions mentioned in my paper titled “ Simple and effective reforms for controlling corruption and delivering good governance”  in sub title ‘Railway Reforms’ regarding the reforms in railway sector, it will be ideal for  IR keeping in view of passenger convenience, safety and security issues are concerned  to make it mandatorily to mention on the reservation request form the details of ID proof either the PAN no or the voter ID number or the ration card or the Adhar number of each  passengers to obtain the reservation and travel by train. Even for the issue of general ticket also some ID proof should be there. Making it mandatory that travel by train needs valid ID proof, In case of minors travelling the guardian should have the ID proof, in case minors the copies of the Ration card or the school /college ID should be mandatory. No children below 10 years without accompanying the elders / guardians/ parents should be permitted to travel alone in the trains.

All the general ticket issuing counters should be made to record closely with the cameras the ticket purchasers and the tickets for travel should be issued on physically seeing the any ID proof by the  ticket issue staff and record in the computer system the nature of the card i.e PAN card voter ID card, Adhar card or Passport or or driving licence or gas card or MNREGA job card or kissan card etc and the name as in the ID card should be typed and nature of the ID card should be printed on the general ticket the nature of the ID proof he was carrying and an overall list of the general ticket numbers with destination and nature of ID should be handover to the TTE or train superintendent to verify the passengers in the general coaches also as per the details in the computer system. It should be mandatory that all passengers wish to board the train should carry some sort of ID card for their travel by train.

Also it should be mandatory that all passenger tickets should be bar coded and a hand held bar bar coding reading devices should be provided to TTE for reading the bar coding of the ticket for authenticity and verify the ID proof of the passenger as mentioned in the ticket. This facility will certainly makes the security tighter and also the convenience that all the data of the passengers boarded will be recorded and intimated to the central server through computer system in the next station. As such the vacant seats will be automatically awarded and intimated through mobile SMS to the RAC passengers and in no case allowed to travel wait listed passengers and unauthorised passengers once the train moves from the station.

The above system will bring a responsibility to every passenger in the train to carry the ID card with him and also un authorised travel will be eliminated and the corruption by the TTE will be eliminated in the event of reserved passengers not travel and get their ticket cancelled and also the RAC passengers will get absolute justice without being all around tge TTE for confirming the ticket and also the information about the passengers travelling will be up loaded soon on boarding will be more useful in many security angel as well as in case of any tragic incidents happens, the photographs of the passengers can be retrieved through their ID card data bank  i.e PAN card data of Income tax data , voter ID data of election commission, and Adhar card details from UID data base in case of the reserved passengers and  in case of the general passengers through the photo graph in the camera at the time of purchasing the ticket and the address through the name on the ticket and the nature of Id card.

Also it will be more ideal to encourage the passenger ticket booking online as even in the small towns’ internet cafes are existing. To ensure that the burden on railway staff in entering the data of Id card and issue ticket that like mobile recharge retail centres the internet cafes or individuals who do not possess bank credit or debit cards should be provided with electronic cards that can be recharged in every railway reservation counter and railway station with separate counter for recharging in amounts of 1000 rs and multiples and these cards can be used to make reservation of tickets with each reservation will get 5 % cash back in the card that will be commission for doing reservation online ( as railways are saving lot of man power cost, electricity cost , infrastructure maintenance cost, paper and stationery cost for the ticket and the print consumables etc). These cards should have full security futures in the form of e-banking by providing on SMS to the designated mobile number in the card the security code to use the card every time for preventing mis utilisation of these money cards. The cards should be valid for one year and the balance amount should be used only to purchase the tickets only and no case refunded. On completion of one year in case there exists a balance, the balance should be carry forward to next year with a minimum sum say Rs 100 to be deducted and the validity should be extended to one more year. In case the existing balance in the card is less than 100 rs then the card holder wishes to extend should deposit at least 100 rs to make the card validity extended and the normal recharge of 1000 Rs and multiples should be carried out. This method will keep the internet cafe ticketing agents carry forward the business also this method will create some self employment generation for the youth at all places coupled with reduction in burden in the railway staff. However all general tickets should be sold across the counter.

In order to ensure that all passengers carry the valid Id card as mentioned in the reservation ticket there should be fine equivalent to the cost of the ticket should be levied by the TTE for not carrying the valid ID card along with making the passenger to be be boarded from the train in the next station and to hand over to the railway police for further action. There should be more squads for conducting the surprise checks on the passengers as well on the TTE. Also there should be serious punishments for any violation by the TTE and any biased and unwanted offloading of the passenger. The fine and offloading from the train can be done in the presence of the train superintendent and the both TTE and the Train Superintendent should be held responsible and liable for any deviation and violation by them in regarding to any passenger who has been fined and offloaded. Each TTE should be provided with wireless phone for communication with the train superintendent and other TTEs and rail technicians in the train.

Each rail should carry one electrician, one mechanical person two helpers, at least half number of armed police to the total number of coaches and at least ¼ number of  coaches strength toilet cleaners for maintain the higenicness  in the train.  The police personal in the train ( RPF) should given special training in crises management in the event of fire or collision of derail of train or or any terrorist attack or attack by robbers, in identifying the thief etc or in case of any accent that may happen. Also the police persons in the train should be provided with breath analysers and should be advised to check randomly in every coach especially during the evening hours before bed time for any persons consuming alcohol. Alcohol consumption in moving train should be heavily penalised and should be offloaded from the train in the next station and handover the RPF for further action. It will be ideal to impose 3 months imprisonment for boarding the train after consumption of alcohol or consumption of alcohol in the train whether moving or stationary. No passenger/ person should be allowed to consume alcohol in the premises of railway either in the platform or in the train.  This is very necessary as many atrocities are happening in moving trains especially on women and girl children due to the drunkard persons. Also it should be mandatory to ban the sale of tobacco in the railway premises i.e on the shops in the platform or by the hawkers. There should be strict ban on smoking in the railway premises i.e on the platform or the train at all times. Violation should attract a penalty not less than 1000 Rs or 7 days imprisonment. It can be detected by the CC surveillance images in the platforms and the police in the trains should catch the persons smoking in the trains. All train toilets should be equipped with smoke detectors. The passenger violating the law and caught smoking should be offloaded from the train in the next station and handover to the RPF for further action.

All the police persons should be provided with cameras or 3G enabled camera phones for multipurpose use. They can take the pictures of the suspicious persons to be sent an MMS to the RPF server to identify and send details in case of old criminal or people in lookout etc. For this the RPF computer system should maintain the integrated data base of record of all the 8000 railway stations RPF criminals and lookout persons, data of all state and central police requests with photo images in a separate server with a website and receiving the message of the image should analyse the nearby features image through image reorganisation software and sent revert the MMS with details of the person for further action by the police in the train. Also the cameras should be used in making evidence of smoking and consumption of alcohol by the passengers. This will certainly marginalize criminals from travelling by the train. Also the data base will help the RPF to nab such persons from the platform if they got any suspicion on any person by comparing the CC image with image from the criminal data base.

In addition to RPF railway squads should be supplied with breath analyser to check to alcohol consumption by railway staff on duty. As some staff on duty is consuming alcohol while on duty. There should be regular and periodic surprise checks for this should be made for all staff on duty. This will certainly ensure that un wanted nuisance and criminal activities can be marginalised.

Also it will be ideal that there all the state police should have the integrated data of the criminals from all districts police officials and there should be a national integrated data base of criminals from all states which should be up dated everyday online. National Integrated Data of the Criminals should forward it to the Indian Railways as well as to RPF simultaneously. IR reservation system data base will search the details the criminals as per the data of from all the states from every train just minutes after the movement of the train from each station and handover the list if any criminals are travelling either in reserved or general compartment along with photographs to the RPF in every station soon after the movement. Also the Railways will forward the data my SMS, MMS to all the RPF personal who are on duty in the train. The RPF persons soon take into their custody and handover to the RPF in the next station. For This propose the details of police persons of the RPF on each train should be submitted every time before the train movement. Also it will be ideal to have RPF police that were going to perform the duty on the train should be from different states with different mother tong. This will certainly useful in better vigilance and security as many people who travel in train do not know other than their mother tong, in case any thing they wish to covey to the police regarding the suspicious characters in the co passengers etc can be easily conveyed to them. Also all the suspicious persons may not be criminals or some  suspicious persons may not be in the criminal records but might have done some crime and moving away to different places, in all such cases local language speaking police personal from the RPF is very useful. As such the RPF should ensure the deploy team of police person on train duty is well composed having different mother tongs who can speak and understand the different state mother tongs.  Also it will be ideal that in the railway reservation from there should a mandatory field to be mentioned by the passengers about the mother tong.  

All trains should be equipped with pantry car. The pantry should carry hygienic water and facility to cook in hygienic atmosphere, cater the food requirements of the passengers with authorised pantry staff selling the food etc, no hawker should be allowed in the moving train, all unauthorised hawkers should be offloaded from the train once the train stats movement. In case any hawker found in the moving train found should be detained by the railway police in the train and offloaded in the next station and handover to the station police for further action. All unauthorised hawkers should be subjected to minimum of three months imprisonment. All unauthorised persons travelling in train should be imposed one month imprisonment, will certainly make the railway journey more secure and comfortable apart from all other safety measure that are needed in the operation of the railway locos movement system.

Also all the trains should have emergency medical kits in appropriate number as per the strength of the bogies. Also it should be manditory that for all long distance trains more than 12 hours journey should have one fully trained in emergency medicine nursing staff should be deployed for taking all emergency needs of the passengers especially the elders, children and any sick patents. It will be ideal that all nonstop trains should have one doctor travelling in train. Also it should be ideal that all major stations in metros, capital cities, all major cities, all important junctions, and where ever there is large number of foot prints and also in the stations where the distance between any two stations is more than 3 hours should have mandatory duty doctors working in the station premises in appropriate number to take care of the commuters. All doctors and nursing staff should be specially trained in emergency medicine.  Also it should be ideal that in the reservation from only there should be special coloum to mention about the medicinal profession like doctors, nursing staff and there name should be specially given as per their reservation seat number to the train superintendent as well as the nursing staff in the train. All the doctors mentioning the profession should be given 20 % discount in the train fair and should be given preference in the choice of the berth likewise the nursing staff 5 % discount. This will certainly help the all passengers as they feel one doctor is travelling in the train. Also in order to prevent any mis utilisation of this facility it will be mandatory to mention the medical practice number, all the nursing staff about their working details. All the nursing staff should provide the copy of their ID card where they are working to avail this facility. Using this facility will implies that they are willing to serve the co passengers in emergency situations. 

In order to ensure more cleanliness and more security in the railway platforms the railway platform ticket entry fee should made minimum 30 Rs and the validity of the ticket should be for one hour only. The entry in to plat form only on display of valid ID card, All the platform tickets should be bar coded. It should me mandatory that there should be cc cameras in all the station premises especially covering the entry and exit of the platform and the platform as a whole. All the cameras at the ticket issue and the station entry and exit should be connected to the RPF as well as stored in the control room in the DRM office with appropriate number of  persons in shifts continuously monitoring the visuals ensuring that there exists railway officials always at the entrance and exit of the platform and also ensure that no person will stay more than 3 hours on platform ticket and also to monitor regular visitors to the platform for preventing un authorised hawkers, anti social elements from the vicinity of the platforms.

In all stations there should be installed single entry system at the entrance and mandatory that one staff of railway exists there at both entry and exit. This will ensure that all the people entering the platform will have either passenger ticket or the platform ticket with validity of that ticket will be read through the bar coding reading machine. Similarly all the exit points will ensure that the passengers will carry the journey ticket or the valid platform ticket, in case the time of one hour expire then  the additional hour i.e next two hours should be subjected to 20 rs per hour and the third hour 30 Rs per hour. This will ensure there will not be much rush in the platform and also no unauthorised hawkers and persons will stay in the platform. And no person except the passengers should be allowed to stay in the platform for more than three hours. And in the evening after 9 pm only passengers with valid ticket should be allowed to stay in the platform in case there is no space in the passenger waiting hall, inside the platform.

The most ideal way of the CC camera installation and monitoring of the platforms, operation of reading the bar-codes on the tickets to provide entry into platform should be given on Built Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) bases to private parties to invest for the CC camera surveillance facility, their operation and maintenance should be by the private party only for certain number of years. The revenue earnings should be strictly on the bases of number of valid foot prints as the total number of passengers as well as the valid ticket holders of the visiting platform tickets and more percentage of money for the fine imposed on extended validity and penalty for allowing any single person or visitor stayed without platform ticket or stayed more than three hours.  The minimum number of foot prints per station can be obtained from the previous data of sale of tickets that station as starting point.  As the feed of the CC camera is being transmitted live to the RPF as well as in the DRM office to be monitored by special squad members of railways for counter checking the activities of the private CC surveillance operator. Apart from the CC monitoring of the railway staff in the DRM office, the squads will conduct surprise checks every day at some point of time in every station to ensure the alertness of the private CC surveillance operator. The private CC surveillance has only the role of facilitator of the feed and monitoring and informing to the authorities both railways as well as the RPF. Any action in any event should be taken by the railway staff and the RPF staff only. Also it should be mandatory that the CC surveillance operator has to install and ensure maintenance of   100 % power back up at all times and the CC surveillance images should be live with more than 99.9% up time. It is necessary that in case of power cuts the power backup is necessary to read the bar coding, to capture the images from the CC cameras.

Also the safety aspects of platform, track etc should be taken care Honeywell has developed multiple solutions that are used to improve safety on and around train tracks.  Advanced electronic sensors and radar based technologies for railroad applications which can provide precise, reliable information in all weather conditions about speed and distance of rail vehicles. The detection systems can be installed in platform, the railway crossings, in detecting the objects on the tracks etc. Also the optical fibre track detention should be ideal to detect the breakages in the track for more safety.

The Platform Track Intrusion Detection System (PTIDS) is a radar transponder assembly for the surveillance of the tracks in front of a platform; this security solution was exclusively for driver-less  remote controlled metro systems. An advanced sensor using radar technology provides surveillance coverage in front of platforms, between trains and at tunnel entrances.  The sensor will trigger the safety systems in the stations to stop the train if an object is detected on the tracks.  Virtually maintenance free, PTIDS provides weather proven safety without being compromised by rain, fog, paper, plastic bags etc, while showcasing an industry leading low false alarm rate. Bodies larger than 30 cm will trigger an alarm.  The radar sensors are placed in modules.  The length of a module is 2.5 meters and these modules can be combined up to 160 meters total length of the platform.  

Vehicle Detector is a radar based sensor that uses Doppler and FMCW mode simultaneously for detection of vehicles, e.g. trains, trucks, cars, moving or stationary. Speed and distance are measured simultaneously, providing high accuracy while being maintenance free. The vehicle detector is used in rough environments, e.g. railway tunnels to determine the presence and speed of a train.  A sensor assembly along the track supports a system software to decide if the train is moving or has stopped, to determine it’s speed and direction and detect if a train has separated.  The sensor is operating at 24 GHz and is therefore not disturbed by moisture, dust or smog.  The sensor is maintenance free and does not require scheduled cleaning.

Radar Scanner is an automatic monitoring system for detection of objects (roadway traffic) located between the gates of a level crossing. It increases the safety for people and vehicles crossing the tracks, especially if they are trapped in full barrier level crossings. The systems sends and output signal “crossing clear’ or “crossing occupied”.  The detection of obstructions occurs by means of a radar sensor measuring distances.   With every rotation the radar generates a horizontal scan of the section of roadway between the railway gates.  If an object is found to be inside the area that is being monitored, then a corresponding signal is send out to the level crossing control system that prevents clearance for the train passage.

Also it should be mandatory that all the railway staff should be issued bar coded wipe card pass for travel in train to perform the duties. A swiping machine should be installed at the entrance to access the validity and authenticity of the pass of the individual employee and issues a bar coded ticket for the purpose of entry and exit of the platform like any other passengers. Only the staff attending that particular platform should be given separate bar coded id cards for entry and exit of the platform. This process will completely eliminate unauthorised entry by any single individual into the platform. This process will also ensure that all railway staff utilise the daily rail travel pass appropriately.

The Automation of EQ release facility coupled with mandatory systematic criteria for EQ realise will reduce the corruption, mis utilisation of EQ facility and certainly provide more number of seats for the eligible common person within the available seats. On implementation of safety measures like CC cameras, mandatory ID proof for the issue of train ticket, and RPF, medical teams all coupled with platform safety, rail track safety implementation will certainly boost the image, confidence in the common person will feel justice done to him by the railways, after all the railways utilising the common mans money for their growth, truly making Indian Railways the “Life line of India”.

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(Ref: 1***) Measures for prevention of corruption and good governance  in airline travel titled ‘Simple and Effective Reforms for controlling corruption and delivering good governance’ in sub title “Travel and hospitality sector reforms”. 

(Ref: 2***) Measures for prevention of corruption and delivery of good governance in Highway and road safety titled ‘Simple and Effective Reforms for controlling corruption and delivering good governance’ in sub title “Transport sector reforms”

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JAI HIND