The high-profile Vande Bharat trains, that have been introduced by the government with much fanfare across the country and have come under controversy for derailing timetables of some of the regular and Shatabdi trains, besides allegedly not being superfast as was projected, seem to be running on an expenditure that is not officially recorded.
A right to information (RTI) application filed online by this writer, with the ministry of railways, seeking information on the expenditure on Vande Bharat trains including profits/ losses so far, resulted in a series of RTI replies from the railway offices from across the country. This also included replies from the railway board which sought information directly from the ministry of railways and a couple of financial and accounts departments of railway divisions.
Shockingly, this writer’s RTI application was addressed to the ministry of railways but since it did not have the compiled data of the expenses, the application was directed to all the railway divisions including finance departments. The Vande Bharat train is an amenity for the public created through public funds so, logically, as per the suo motu disclosures under Section 4 of the RTI Act, the details should have been regularly uploaded on the railway ministry website. Now, even if you file an RTI, there is just no information on the expenses that have come from the taxpayers’ money, because they have not been recorded at all.
The startling fact from the replies is that there is NO record of expenditure on Vande Bharat trains! How can the government so indiscreetly spend from the public exchequer? The only details I got were that Rs1,53,18,840 has been spent for the flagging off of the Vande Bharat train.
This most crucial reply came from the railway ministry. “Train-wise profit/ losses of Vande Bharat trains is not maintained,” as per the information of the ministry of railways as stated by the railway board in its reply under RTI.
Now let’s look at the replies of various offices of the Indian railways.
As per the Eastern railways accounts department, “It is informed that no separate Head of allocation has been provided for expenditure incurred under Vande Bharat trains. So, expenditure incurred separately under Vande Bharat trains could not be furnished from CAO (Budget section)."
As per the PIO of the South East Central railways, information pertaining to profits/ losses of Vande Bharat trains “does not pertain to this department of SECR/ Nagpur division.”
As per the PIO of the East Central railways, “Details of profits and losses of Vande Bharat trains are not available.”
As per the office of the principal chief operations manager, Eastern railways, the query about profits/ losses of Vande Bharat trains is “not pertaining to this operating branch.” The reply further stated that the information was transferred to the PIO of Eastern railways.
The office of the South Central railways did not provide any information on the expenditure of the Vande Bharat trains – it simply ignored it.
As per the PIO of the Southern railways, “Train-wise expenditure is not captured and hence profit/ loss for Vande Bharat trains is not being worked out.”
Challa Vineeth Reddy, the senior divisional finance manager of the office of the senior DFM, Secunderabad division, in his role as PIO, replied that “The application has been examined wherein the expenditure for Vande Bharat trains has been sought. However, as details of train-wise expenditure are not available with the undersigned, this office is not in a position to furnish the information sought by you. It is however informed that expenditure on the inaugural function of Vande Bharat trains up to August in the year 2023 was Rs1,53,18,840.”
As per the reply by Madhur Agrawal, deputy chief accounts officer (general) of the office of the principal advisor, Western railways HQ, Churchgate, Mumbai, the information regarding the expenses of Vande Bharat trains, “does not pertain to this office. A copy of the application has already been sent by CRTI Cell/ CAPIO-CCG to the concerned department.”
As per the office of the South East Central railways, Bilaspur, the information regarding the expenses of Vande Bharat trains is not available.
The Northern railways replied that the information “pertains to commercial department, hence, the case has already been transferred to CPIO/ commercial by CPIO/ nodal…”
As per the divisional railway manager’s office of the West Central railways, “The information regarding expenses of Vande Bharat trains does not pertain to this department.” However, it gave details of the earnings.
Isn’t the government accountable to its people? In this case, it seems it has failed to be so. Quite worrying…
(Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife. She is also the convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain Award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book "To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte" with Vinita Kamte and is the author of "The Mighty Fall".)
Any commercial transporting entity would have prepared an estimate of the costs and profit / loss on any new service introduced.
It appears that the Railway is supposed to be run on commercial lines (after de-linking their budget from the Union budget) and it's high time to consider bringing the Railways under commercial accounting & reporting standards
Have u ever tried same with Rajdhani, Duranto, Shatabdi?
Excessive hate against anything I.e connected to Modi is injurious to ur mental health
Urge of eulogizing is very hard to shed.