On the zonal split up that took place more than a decade back, the Committee strongly feels that this should not have happened because of the presence of economies of scale and other economies (density and scope) which incidentally has been researched in fairly great detail by many researchers (undertaken between 1980s and late 1990s, for example Anand, 2004) who said emphatically that this was not time for such split ups. There is a comment of the lack of clear commercial principles in regard to evaluation of projects. Traditionally, evaluations (financial and economic) were undertaken by the Economics Unit of the Railway Board but had to be finally whetted by the Planning Commission which made its presence strongly felt in this context to ensure that public investment also attempt to generate surpluses while at the same time provide for the larger developmental effects. It is true that the IR has not made operating losses for quite some time. This was possible by arbitrarily cutting down on allocations to the various funds including the DRF about which the Committee rightly says that there was no proper basis for provision to this important but neglected fund which virtually has no balance at all today.