Experiences of Various Forms of Commercial Partnerships in Indian Railways

This paper brings out issues of governance between the Ministry of Railways and various service delivering commercial entities under the Ministry. Some of this is accentuated by both the ministerial and administrative powers vested in the same body, namely the Railway Board. We examine a set of eight case situations, wherein there has been an attempt to focus on a commercial approach. However, the extent of success/failure is varied. A study of these cases brings out the potential of improving railway infrastructure under a governance framework of (i) distancing the ministerial role from the commercial activity, (ii) increased private participation, (iii) improving transparency, contestability and competition, and (iv) appropriate regulations We describe salient features of each of the cases, with comments from the perspective of commercial viability. A concluding section brings out some of the key concepts which would be relevant for such commercial partnerships in the future. At a broader level, given the budgetary constraints, under exploited potential of the IRs assets and service possibilities, lack of commercially oriented professional and accountable management, such commercial partnerships have implicitly been accepted (by both the central government and the top management of IR) as the way forward.