The Standing Committee on Railways in its report has said that public money which has gone into the setting up and working of the various expert committees was being squandered when their recommendations are not implemented.
“That being so, the committee is constrained to point out that if the expert panels’ recommendations are not implemented in the right earnest, there appears no justification to constitute such committees,” the report tabled in Parliament on Monday said. The 31-member committee report was headed by former Railway Minister and TMC MP in the Rajya Sabha Dinesh Trivedi.
The committee has strongly advocated for implementations of the expert committees’ reports in a time-bound manner. The committee noted that in the recent past, various committees have been constituted by Railways to study various aspects of the functioning of the public transporter.
There are committees such as Kakodkar Committee, which was constituted to review safety of railway system. Sreedharan Committee was formed to review the delegation of commercial powers for railway projects for lower levels of bureaucracy. Mittal Committee was formed to suggest ways and means to raise the revenue of the Railways.
The Sam Pitroda committee looked into the ways and means to modernise the Railway system. Similarly Debroy Committee was set up to study and report the limited role of Railway Board, revamping of HR functions and restructuring the Board.
The parliamentary committee has found that notwithstanding the fact that some of these committees submitted their report in 2012, their recommendations are still under examination by Railway Ministry and no decision has been taken on their implementation.
Considering the lackadaisical approach of Railway Ministry, the committee strongly recommended setting a time-schedule to implement the recommendations of these expert committees. The committee has accordingly asked the Railways to scientifically monitor the progress made in this regard at the highest level.
The report further said: “This sort of inaction becomes all the more serious when the much acclaimed investment plan of Railways is in a take-off stage and the government has been claiming to transform railways on the lines of the Chinese, Japanese and French Railways.”