Two appealing points in the article,
(1) the great lumbering, blundering IR has been labelled as holiest among several sacred cows being bred by our Govt. It is said to be a product of public sector business model evolved by Jawahar lal nehru which has lost its sanctity under prevailing scenario.
* But one thing that should be emphasised here is that most of the other sectors have been opened to private sector, railway operation still continues to be monopoly of IR. This exactly is the root cause of the perpetual...
more...

inefficiency in IR. IR cannot improve unless put into competition with efficient competitors. Opening of Automobile manufacturing, steel, power generation, Telecom, etc has resulted in ready availability of good products at reasonable price.
(2) IR has been compared to a dinosaur that offers employment to a little over 1 million people who live off government fat without accountability. The interest of the nation and the welfare of a 1.25 billion people cannot be mortgaged to pander to the wishes of lobbies with vested interests.
* With high per unit (per T or per pax) transport cost, inefficiency of IR is primarily responsible for high logistics cost of India which is costing our economy atleast a few lac crore Rs. per annum! Instead of boosting Indian Economy, as it used to be 6-7 decades back, IR is gobbling up a huge resources every year by way of budgetary support, which is basically Indian tax payers' money. Growth of nation and welfare of 125 crore Indians is indeed getting hampered by inefficient IR just to serve the interests of a few hundred cronies, a few thousand officials and a few lac employees.