Oh how the mighty have fallen! Did you miss the rail budget too!!

 

1st Feb 2023, 11 AM: The FM Nirmala Seetharaman rose and spoke for nearly 90 minutes. I listened. And listened. Since I mostly failed to grasp the content and direction, I remembered these lines of Troilus from the bard’s Troilus and Cressida, “Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart: the effect doth operate another way”. Whatever the bard meant by that, these words did have a confusing effect on me.

 

I was, of course, not an impartial listener. As a railwayman for life, I was listening patiently to grab the expected four lines on Indian Railways, if not from the heart, at least from the mind. Four lines it was the last time round: 1) efficient logistics for small farmers and Small and Medium Enterprises, including in integration of Postal and Railways networks to provide seamless solutions for movement of parcels. 2) ‘One Station-One Product’ 3) Kavach on 2000 km and 400 Vande Bharat trains and 4) PM Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals.

 

I had tweeted my blog on my expectations from the rail budget the day before with the statement, “Tomorrow's the day of the budget. I am not savvy enough to talk about it but still, have hopes from the chhota wala, the railway budget, of four lines in the FM's speech. Read on if you have hopes too”:

 

http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2023/01/vanishing-budget-of-indian-railways.html

 

I followed it with a tweet in the morning today, referring to the blog and the budget, “Read it, friends, before 11 AM and do guess what the FM's 4 or 5 lines on Rail Budget would be! I am wondering as of now...”             

 

Pretty soon, she did speak, calling out grandly that it was something about railways. And then all of one line. Or perhaps, one and a half. One about the Capital Outlay of Rs 2.4 lakh cr, which she said was the highest ever and nine times higher than that in 2013-14 (never mind that she herself had proposed Rs. 2.45 lakh cr last year). And another half about one hundred critical transport infrastructure projects, of which, presumably and hopefully, some would involve railways.

 

What can I say? I have to recall my uncle, Chachā Ghālib and begin rummaging through the boring numbers, possibly camouflaged, of the rail budget to extract something meaningful:

 

Thī ḳhabar garm ki Ghālib ke uḌeñge purze

dekhne ham bhī ga.e the pa tamāshā na huā

(The news was hot that Ghālib would be blown to smithereens and I too went to witness the grand show and spectacle but what was revealed was a damp squib.)

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