Parliament Panel seeks cost benefit analysis of Modi's Bullet Train Proposal

19 Dec 2014 Evaluate

Not fully persuaded about financial viability of bullet trains, a parliament panel asked the Railway Ministry to conduct a cost benefit analysis of PM Narendra Modi’s ambitious project against other pending railways projects to ensure optimum and judicious utilization of scarce resources held by railways.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways, chaired by TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi, in its report mentioned that the committee was not convinced with the justification provided by the ministry that of the project despite being financially unviable as compared to other big railways projects carried additional unique features, including improved economic rate of return in terms value of time saved of passengers, environmental benefits, appreciation in real estate value and residual value of infrastructure, besides enhancing the country’s prestige internationally.

The Committee felt that if the amount equivalent to that proposed to be expended for bullet trains was used for execution of the long pending railways projects, the benefits to the general public would be much more.

Separately, Quashing Railway's move to sell 50% of the tatkal tickets under ‘dynamic pricing mechanism’, a Parliamentary panel on Thursday urged the railways for institutionalizing the concerns of poor by reducing the premium on such tickets to a ‘minimum essential level’ as the system was legitimizing inequality.

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