NYT wonders how India’s railways might cease to be an obstacle to development.
Key part:
To subsidize passenger travel, the railways levy some of the highest freight tariffs in the world. India charges four times what American companies charge for rail freight and twice as much as in China.
Business executives say their best hopes for improving the railroad’s costs and capabilities may ride on solutions not wholly reliant on Indian Railways.
Four years ago, the government began allowing private companies to operate container trains. One of the new carriers is IndiaLinx, which buys rail cars and leases tracks, locomotives and workers from the Railways.
It seems like we have found an answer. Rather than letting politicians inaugurate plans that will never come to fruition just to win some more votes, rather than letting demagogues demand below-market fares for passengers, rather than wondering why traffic levels “exceed the plan” (eww, Soviet flashback), rather than talking about how government can’t fix the old track fast enough or lay down enough new or acquire better rolling stock, why not just privatize the whole thing?
I realize it’s an iconic system among the longest in the world and it gets crazy ridership figures, but the current system doesn’t sound like it is working. If India wants to lift more people out of poverty, it is going to need to stop charging crazy freight taxes on businesses so they can subsidize poor people and start enabling those businesses to lower their input costs and put more people to work. The best way to accomplish all of this would be to privatize the system and put a profit motive on getting goods from point A to point B in a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost. Even passenger service can almost certainly be a moneymaker in India since rail travel is far more popular than it is in the U.S.
The Country Estate 