Indian Railway Finances

Railway finances are closely linked to the role that has been traditionally assigned to the railway system in the development of the Indian economy. But given a mandate of performance on commercial lines in a liberalised economic policy framework, Indian Railways is necessarily required to depend on internal resource generation for funding maintenance and expansion of the network. Railway budgets which could have served as a basis to operationalise strategies to launch the railways on to such a process have attempted very little, especially in the recent past. What are the problems and constraints that the railways encounters in its efforts to fit into the new policy framework?