We all would know, how ex Railway Minister Mr. Lalu Yadav boasted about the profitability of Railway Department. There was a huge applause from every corner of the nation for him. Not only this, Mr. Lalu also enjoyed the visit to Management institutes across the globe.

Kudos to him and his team!!!

Yes, I certainly appreciate the work done by his team that changeed the finance book of railway office. But have we ever realized from where this money was flowing. Mr. Lalu who never gets tired of backing “Garib Janta” or “middle class” of the nation earned this money right from their pockets in various ways:

· Increase the number of seats available for “Tatkal”. Wow!!! Every one was so happy with this step but we never realized that seats for Tatkal were increased by reducing the number of seats available for general reservation. What that means to us. This means that now we won’t get reservation easily in general quota because of less number of seats available. And we will have to pay extra to get a confirmed ticket via booking it through Tatkal scheme.

· More over, Tatkal was complimented by increasing the Tatkal fees.

· To get enough reservation in Tatkal he went ahead by increasing the time period from one day to 5 days, so that all the seats can be full filled. Of course filling up a large number of seats will take more time…

· In some trains, one seat – Middle Side berth is also added (which makes the compartment so congested that the person who gets that seat allocated actually starts feeling cheated. To add to that seat number allocated on the ticket always gets changed when person actually boards the train because railway reservation site is not updated with the increased number of seats properly)

Who has suffered from this? And what we got in return by paying more than double fare in Tatkal: Reduced fare by Rs 5 or 10 and so. And yes, we got “Garib Rath” also with more or like equal fare.

Surely railway ministry did some recommendable marketing activities like offering Tour Packages or easy access to the train tickets through eTicket.

What more should have been done is on public well fare. My point is that so called “Garib Janta” will not stop using train if we increase 10 rs once but provide better facilities. We don’t even get enough seats available on the platform while waiting for the train. Commuters have increased but basic infrastructure remains the same what is available from starting.

Thanks to the new railway ministry who has taken into consideration all these points which are making a hole in the pocket of public. I hope they will take into consideration other factors also and will make better decisions.