Hundreds gather in New Delhi after government announced 14% increase in effort to get ailing service back on track
By Anu Anand
 |
Commuters hang on the
outside of a local train in Mumbai.
The rail network
carries 23 million people every day.
Photograph: Rafiq
Maqbool/AP
|
It is one of the world's oldest and
busiest rail networks, carrying 23 million people on 12,000 trains every day,
including students, rural labourers and middle-class workers. But a 14% rise in
heavily subsidised passenger fares has sparked outrage across the country,
leading to protests as the new government prepares to unveil its annual rail
budget.
Hundreds of people gathered in New
Delhi on Monday to protest against rising food, fuel and transport costs,
including the rise in train ticket prices, disrupting the opening session of
parliament. Freight has also been increased by 6.5%, making commodities such as
cement, iron ore and coal more expensive.
India's finance minister,
Arun Jaitley, defended the fare rise, citing a $5.5bn (£3bn) loss on passenger
fares alone.
"If we didn't hike fares, the
railways would have shut," Jaitley told India's lower house of parliament.
"If you're using a service, you should pay for it."
India is the only country to have a
separate budget for its railways, a provision dating to a 1924 precedent set by
British colonial rulers. For decades, rail accounted for the majority of
passenger and freight traffic.
But today, as India's
government-owned rail network faces competition from better roads and a
proliferation of airlines, it still employs 1.3 million people and runs rail
catering services as well as schools and hospitals for its workers.
Tickets are discounted for
passengers in 53 categories, including film technicians, members of St Johns
Ambulance Brigades, research scholars, war widows, disabled people and senior
citizens.
Chancellor,
hoping to attract millions from Indian firms, says new PM has created 'real
excitement' over hopes for reform
By Rowena Mason
George Osborne has praised the controversial
new Indian prime minister Narendra Modi for creating a mood of change
in India, as he landed in the country on a mission to
strike a series of multimillion pound trade deals.
The
chancellor and foreign secretary William Hague are the first senior British
politicians due to meet Modi, the Hindu nationalist leader, since his landslide
victory in May.
Speaking from Mumbai, Osborne said
Modi's popularity showed the coalition had been right to re-establish contact
with him in 2012. The last government broke off relations with the former mayor
of Gujarat after he was accused in 2002 of allowing, or even encouraging, riots
that killed 1,000 people, largely Muslims. A supreme court investigation found
insufficient evidence to support the charges against Modi, who has always
denied any wrongdoing.
The government wants British
companies to do well out of Modi's promised construction boom, as the new prime
minister has pledged to build 100 new cities, roads, railways and ports.
In a joint editorial
in the Times of India, Hague and Osborne also said Britain wants to
expand its military exports to the country. "We want our defence and
aerospace companies to help bring India more cutting-edge technology, skills
and jobs," they wrote.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today
programme, Osborne defended the UK's efforts to sell military equipment to
Modi, saying India has "difficult neighbours" and has a right to
defend itself.
The chancellor said it was
"very early days" but he had wanted to meet Modi to say Britain and
India "can do lots of good business together, that these good days are
coming".
"We as a new British government
took a decision in 2012 to re-establish contact with him," Osborne said.
"That has been very sensible given all that has happened since, in the way
Mr Modi has managed to win an outright majority for the first time in Indian
politics for 30 years, to create a real sense of excitement in India that
economic reform is possible and is going to happen."
Osborne said Modi had a better
chance of achieving economic reform than some recent Indian governments because
"he's got this enormous mandate for change, [and] in his election he
appeals precisely to that young aspirational Indian who wanted to see more
economic development in their country and get away from the subsidy culture
which had bedevilled a lot of Indian politics."
Osborne compared the appeal of Modi
to the coalition's own efforts to "make the world look at the UK in a new
light".
The chancellor and foreign secretary
will speak to business leaders in Mumbai about the prospects for the Indian
economy since the new prime minister's election.
Ahead of the speeches, the two
ministers will visit the car company Mahindra, which is investing £20m in an
electric vehicles project at Farnham and Donington. They will also announce
that Indian pharmaceutical company Cipla is to invest up to £100m in the UK.
After visiting Mumbai, Osborne and
Hague will go to New Delhi to pay court to Modi, following recent visits by
senior French and Russian ministers
