The railway and the general budgets are presented to obtain Parliament's approval for expenditures, which government departments incur during the course of the budgetary year. Thus for the year 2003-2004, the budgets were approved for meeting expenses up to the 31st March 2004.

However, in the meanwhile, Lok Sabha will be dissolved on 6^th February after which elections will take place and a new Government will be constituted - sometime in May or June. In order to meet the government's expenditures from April 2004 to June 2004, a vote of account is being sought from Parliament to legitimise government spending during these months.

With this in mind, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar presented the vote on account for the railways yesterday. In the opening lines of his speech, he said, "Sir, I rise to place before the House the revised estimates for 2003-04 and the estimated receipts and expenditure for 2004-05. The estimates for the next financial year are for the whole year, but at present I seek from the august house a "vote on account," sufficient to provide for the estimated expenditure for the first four months. The requirements for the remaining part of the year are to be voted separately, later on."

Propriety demanded that he should have then spelt out the money required for the first four months and be done with it. That would have ended the vote on account story.

But then if you give a politician an inch you know what he will take. Kumar chose the occasion to extend the vote on account into a quest for votes via a so-called interim budget. He announced a series of measures calculated to reiforce the feel-good factor throughout the length and breath of the country.

There has been no hike in passenger and freight rates. The ministry has announced 17 new super-fast 'sampark kranti express' trains to connect every state with a non-stop journey to Delhi. This will help the railways cater to more passengers, while "emergency" travellers will be able to buy tickets on the spot for all trains in all classes under the 'tatkal' scheme, which is being integrated with the passenger reservation system.

Kumar also announced a pilot project enabling those travelling on select Shatabdi Express trains to book their reservations through the internet and occupy reserved seats on the basis of a computer generated slip. He also announced that tickets can be booked on cell phones. A frequent- traveller scheme on the lines prevailing for airlines will also be introduced.

Travellers will be updated on their cell phones if there is a delay in the departure of Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Jan Shatabdi trains by more than 30 minutes, he said. Initially, this facility will be introduced as a pilot project for these trains departing from Delhi.

The tatkal reservation scheme, available now only in select trains and primarily in the sleeper class for short-notice travellers, will also be extended to all trains in sleeper, chair car, AC 3-tier and 2-tier classes.

These measures were for the benefit of the middle and upper middle classes. For the not so fortunate class, Kumar announced a new scheme - the 'remote area rail sampark yojana' - to execute pending projects worth nearly Rs 20,000 crore out of a total of 230 projects worth about Rs 43,000 crore.

The new scheme, according to Kumar, will translate into three lakh new jobs annually during the construction period and create18,000 new vacancies per year once all the projects, which include new lines, gauge conversion, doubling, electrification and metropolitan transport works, are completed.

Now to get to the facts and figures. The interim budget. revealed a Rs 890 crore shortfall in gross traffic receipts over the budget estimate for the current fiscal. This, when seen in the light of the economy growing at about 8 per cent, is a cause for concern. However, a 3.73 per cent drop in total expenditure in the current fiscal over the budget estimate helped the Railways to post a higher surplus of Rs 880 crore compared with Rs 600 crore in the budget estimate.

The net traffic receipts for 2004-05 are projected to decline by 1.4 per cent to Rs 3,232 crore, as the total working expenses for the next year will grow at a rate higher than the gross traffic receipts.

The minister's game plan for the current year has been to balance the drop in earnings by cutting operating expenses on rolling stock, fuel and on track renewals, along with a Rs 290 crore lower allocation to the pension fund.

While he improved the operating ratio (working expenses as percentage of gross traffic receipts) to 92.6 per cent in 2003-04 from 94.1 per cent in the BE, it is expected to slide to 93 per cent in the next fiscal.

At the end of the year 2004-2005, the excess of receipts over expenditure works out to Rs 620 crore.

That is the story of the railways as we see today. A feel good story. But the question is 'is it a feel right story?' Has the minister addressed the real problems haunting Indian railways - such as passenger subsidies, falling margins, replacement of old assets, creation of new capacities, safety, security and most importantly - losing market share to the roadways?

Not adequately, experts would concur. And, if the minister has to get its act right, the story line has to be changed substantially when the real budget is presented four months later.