Mad men are running this country. Before I'm booked for sedition, let me clarify: The current dispensation would've been at home at Madison Avenue of the 1950s, or its subsidiary east of the Sindhu. As lawmakers, their track record is debatable; as ad men, they can give Don Draper a run for his money, and not only if Dettol or Black Bourbon happen to be clients.
Ten years is a long time. Maybe that's why when it rode the tsuNaMo back to Lutyens' Delhi, NDA did not remember The Burning Train that was India Shining. Or perhaps BJP and Co chose not to - coming good on promises is much harder than, say, rolling out buzzwords one after the other. In the summer of 2014, Achhe Din caught on; ab ki baar, it was Modi Sarkar. A sarkar that meant business. A sarkar that loved business. But a sarkar that truly believes that a government has no business being in business. Except, perhaps, the advertising business.
Orwellian is a word being thrown around with respect to this government perhaps a tad too liberally, but that's because the fire of intolerance is, for the first time in many years, raging so wildly, it is bothering the liberals who for so long have been safely ensconced high up in their ivory towers. Sure, you can't have a cow, man, unless you want to milk it. But there are no telescreens, only social media monitoring cells; there is no thought police, only the moral police and, of course, Delhi police. Then again, while a sophisticated apparatus of propaganda is still some time away, the first step - distortion of language - is well underway.
From Make In India to Mann Ki Baat, the hits have just kept on coming, at least one of which - HIT (Highways, Information ways, Transmission ways) - was a hit with our neighbours in Nepal. In a year and a half, we've been blessed with all manner of buzzwords. There are abbreviations, which come in two flavours. One is acronyms, the ones that you can pronounce as a word. Think NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog, the defanged Planning Commission, or SETU (Self-Employment and Talent Utilisation), a programme under NITI Aayog. The other is initialisms, the ones that have to be spelt out, like FDI. That's First Develop India, not Foreign Direct Investment.
There is renaming - of Nirmal Bharat to Swachh Bharat, the hint of ethnic cleansing not lost on anyone, or of the lapsed JNNURM to AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation). There are mnemonics that are ridiculously hard to remember, be it 3Ds (Democracy, Demography, Demand) or 5F (Farm to Fibre, Fibre to Fabric, Fabric to Fashion, Fabric to Foreign). There is blatant appropriation - think Sardar Patel Urban Housing Mission. Finally, there are the miscellaneous coinages that do not fit neatly into any of the aforementioned brackets, be it Digital India or Give It Up.
Four days after the Prime Minister gave us RURBAN, Suresh Prabhu got a chance to showcase his sloganeering once again in what was his sophomore Railway Budget. The debut was impressive - less than a year into the new government taking charge, it was a mix of promises and catchphrases with a few nods to Modi's flagship schemes. This time around, with the honeymoon long relegated to the history books, Prabhu launched the Modi Sarkar Railway Lexicon. So, except for a few specifics that can easily be taken care of in a postscript, the highlights of this newfangled dictionary are, in fact, the highlights of this year's Rail Budget. So without further ado, here they are, broken down by category:
A. Acronyms
1. UDAY (Utkrisht Double-Decker Air-conditioned Yatri): Overnight double-decker express trains on the busiest routes that will potentially increase carrying capacity by 40%.
2. SMART (Specially Modified Aesthetic Refreshing Travel): High-capacity coaches with automatic doors, bar-code readers, bio-vacuum toilets, water-level indicators, accessible dustbins, ergonomic seating, improved aesthetics, vending machines, entertainment screens, LED-lit boards for advertising, PA system, etc.
3. SRESTHA (Special Railway Establishment for Strategic Technology & Holistic Advancement): R&D organisation for long-term research headed by an eminent scientist.
4. SUTRA (Special Unit for Transportation Research and Analytics): A team of professional analysts for data-backed decision making.
5. PACE (Procurement and Consumption Efficiency): One of 7 Missions (see 'Mnemonics').
B. Initialisms
1. RPIO (Railway Planning & Investment Organisation): For drafting medium- (5-year) and long-term (10-year) corporate plans.
2. NRP-2030 (National Rail Plan): For long-term planning of augmenting railway network and achieving seamless multi-modal transportation network. Coined in the buildup to the Rail Budget.
3. TMS (Track Management System): Launched earlier this year; track inspection, monitoring and maintenance via SMSes and e-mails.
C. Renaming
Sahayak: Formerly coolies, they will be provided new uniforms and trained in soft skills; methods of offering them group insurance facility will also be explored.
D. Mnemonics
1. 3 Rs (Reorganise, Restructure and Rejuvenate): The new thought process of Indian Railways.
2. 3 pillars of strategy that reflect the 3 Rs: Nav Arjan (New revenues), Nav Manak (New norms), Nav Sanrachna (New structures)
3. 7 missions: 7 activities undertaken through a mission mode, each with a mission director who reports directly to the railway board chairman:
i) Mission 25 Tonne (augment carrying capacity)
ii) Mission Zero Accident (safety via two sub-missions: elimination of unmanned level crossings and equipping 100% of the high density network with Train Collision Avoidance System within 3 years)
iii) Mission PACE (increase savings and improve quality of goods and services; see 'Acronyms')
iv) Mission Raftaar (doubling average speeds of freights trains and increasing the average speed of superfast mail/express trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years)
v) Mission Hundred (commission at least 100 sidings in 2 years)
vi) Mission beyond book-keeping (establish an accounting system where outcomes can be tracked to inputs)
vii) Mission Capacity Utilisation (blueprint for utilising additional capacity as soon as dedicated freight corridors between Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata are commissioned)
E. Appropriation
1. While Prabhu's debut budget proposed setting up the Malaviya chair for railway technology at IIT-BHU, Varanasi, this year, two chairs were proposed - CT Venugopal chair on strategic finance, research and policy development and Kalpana Chawla chair on geo-spatial technology.
2. Deen Dayalu coaches: Named after one of the Sangh's own; long-distance trains will have two to four of these unreserved coaches with enhanced capacity, potable drinking water and a higher number of mobile charging points.
3. Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat: Coined last year as a derivative of Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, this year, it's about Clean My Coach (see 'Miscellaneous coinage'), 17,000 bio-toilets in trains and additional toilets at 475 stations before the close of this financial year, additional 30,000 bio-toilets in the next financial year, portable structures with bio-toilets at all platforms of select stations, at least one disabled-friendly toilet at each platform in A1 class stations and world’s first bio-vacuum toilet on the Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express.
F. Miscellaneous coinage
1. Humsafar: Fully 3AC trains with an optional service for meals.
2. Tejas: Trains with average speeds of over 130 kmph and onboard services such as entertainment, local cuisine, wi-fi, etc. through one service provider.
3. Antyodaya: A long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service.
4. Rakshak: Wireless device to be provided to gangmen to intimate them about approaching trains.
5. Navarambh (A New Beginning), comprising:
i) Navinikaran (Structural Interventions): Organisational restructuring of railway board "along business lines"; makes perfect sense for a government in love with big business.
ii) Sashaktikaran (Improving our planning practices): RPIO and NRP-2030 (see 'Abbreviations')
iii) Aekikaran (Consolidation): Examine the feasibility of bringing most companies owned by Indian Railways under the umbrella of a holding company.
iv) Shodh aur vikas (Investing in the future): Develop indigenous technological capability via Foreign Rail Technology Cooperation Scheme (FRTCS; coined in last year's Budget), SRESTHA (see 'Acronyms')
v) Vishleshan (Analyzing data): SUTRA (see 'Acronyms')
vi) Navrachna (Innovation): a) Rs 50 crore for Innovation Challenge administered by Innovation Committee; this year's challenges: accessibility to trains from low-level platforms, increasing coach capacity and digital capabilities at stations; b) Test track for testing of prototypes.
vii) Avataran (Seven Missions; see 'Mnemonics')
6. Clean My Coach: A passenger can request cleaning of his/her coach/toilets on demand through SMS.
7. Rail Mitra Sewa: Comprehensive concierge services including battery operated cars, porter services, wheel chairs, etc.
8. Sarathi Seva: To help old and disabled passengers requiring assistance at Konkan Railway stations; part of Rail Mitra Sewa.
9. Janani sewa: children’s menu items on trains; baby foods, hot milk and hot water at stations; changing boards for babies in train toilets.
That was the Railway Budget 2016-17 according to the Modi Sarkar Railway Lexicon. Whatever could not be covered using Prabhu's phraseology is listed below in the postscript.
PS.
1. No hike in passenger fares.
2. Cancellation through the 139 helpline post verification using OTP sent on registered phone number.
3. Proposal to convert all operational halts into commercial halts.
4. IRCTC to begin managing catering services in a phased manner. E-catering to be extended to all 408 A1- and A-class stations. Local cuisine of choice to be made available.
5. Increased quota of lower berths for senior citizens and women. Increase in senior citizen quota per coach by 50%, resulting in almost 120 lower berths per train for senior citizens.
6. Wi-fi services to be commissioned in partnership with Google at 100 stations this year and 400 more stations in the next 2 years.
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