This year’s annual plenary session of the National People’s Congress in China will end on March 17. The ongoing premier, Wen Jinbao emphasized the need to focus on such issues as inequality, reform and elimination of corruption in high places. These problems which have been plaguing China had triggered widespread protest in the country. The new President, Xi Jinping will take office before the Congress session comes to an end. The government has already rolled out the outlines of the most massive reconstruction effort since 1998 which will soon get off the ground. Changes will be made in the state agencies responsible for energy, food safety and so on. The Railway Ministry will be split in two. As a result of the rejig, the number of ministries under the State’s Council in the cabinet will be reduced from 27 to 25. The objective is to add muscle to the bureaucracy and cut out red tapism. There is also an underlying drive to satisfy the aspirations of the growing middle class of China. The Railway Ministry which reeked of scandals has been downsized. Food and drug regulations are to be tightened up to ensure product safety. All this indicates Xi’s commitment to combat corruption in the government and meet the common man’s demand for accountability from people of influence.
According to the reform plan, the Railway Ministry’s commercial and administrative functions will be separated. The latter will be merged with the Ministry of Transport. The Railways were a behemoth and called ‘Boss Railway”. Despite huge debt and an unsavoury track record for safety, it bypassed reform for years. The current move to overhaul it in China should be a lesson to India where Railways lead to accidents and money-grubbing by those running the organization.