#HeyPrabhu: Is Modi govt driving Indian Railways off the tracks?

India

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By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, May 11: On Thursday, the hashtag--#HeyPrabhu--was trending on Twitter. Reason, as reports suggested that the Indian Railways is experiencing heavy financial losses and witnessing abnormal rise in number of accident cases in the last two years.

Since, Suresh Prabhu is the railway minister, thus Twiterrati came up with this funny hashtag to take a dig at the minister. For the uninitiated Hey Prabhu (Oh Lord!) is a Hindi phrase generally used when someone is in trouble and asks for divine intervention to resolve the issue.

According to a report published by Indian Express, the Indian Railways has ended the financial year with its worst operating ratio in 16 years at 96.9 per cent-deteriorating even from its Revised Estimates in Budget.

"At one point during the last fiscal year, it did look like the transporter's operating ratio (money spent to earn every hundred rupees; the lower the better) would touch, if not cross, the 100-mark. The last time Railways clocked operating ratio this bad was in years 2000-2002. Operating ratio is a key indicator of a commercial organisation's financial health," added the report.

Train accidents remain a big challenge for Prabhu, who is trying to give a new lease of life to the railways.

"2016 proved to be more dangerous for trains than 2015 which had only seven collisions and derailments in which 65 people were killed. In 2016, nearly 150 people were killed in Indore-Patna Express derailment alone. This one was the biggest railway accident in the world in 2016," says a report published by The Economic Times.

Like the Opposition, Twiterrati questioned the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government's plan to introduce bullet trains in the country when the railways is suffering from heavy losses and frequent accidents.

OneIndia News