Ahead of the combined general and railway budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has indicated that the Railways must shift its focus from populism to performance and said that passengers must pay for the service they receive and gave emphasis to outsourcing of non-core functions in railways.
While hinting that there could be hike in passengers fare and rejecting the idea of several subsidies populist announcements regarding trains, he made a strong case for outsourcing of non-core functions like hospitality services of Indian Railways, he said that unless the railways strengthen its performance and internal management system, they will lose out to competition from other sectors like highways and airlines in both passenger and cargo transportation. The core competence of railways is really to drive trains, to provide those services. Hospitality may not be the core competence of the railways and therefore, what is not within its core competence, the principle of outsourcing-which is accepted world over-can be a logical addition to those activities of railways.
Highlighting a transport accounting system, Arun Jaitely said that Accounting System should be revealing and not concealing and railways plan to shift towards accrual system of accounting from cash system will better reflect its performance. `