new delhi pawan kumar bansal seems to be well aware of the tough task he has before him as the new railway minister considering that the national transporter is under huge financial stress soon after the announcement bansal said his priority will be to improve the financial health of the public sector behemoth my priority is to improve the health of the ministry both physical and financial bansal told reporters it will be interesting to see whether bansal the first congress nominee to hold charge of the crucial infrastructure ministry in 16 years will bite the bullet by increasing passenger tariff which has not been touched since 200203 and take other bold reforms advocated by prime minister manmohan singh to revive the railways the new minister deflected a query on fare hike by saying the task of improving financial health was a larger exercise it has to be a larger exercise it does not have to confine to just increasing fares or freight rates that is not the only factor on which the physical or financial health will depend upon he said the railways has to gear up for the challenge of catering to the growing needs of a high growth economy be it transportation of goods foodgrain or machinery for the business sector with higher speed and safety poor finances has affected investment in vital operational areas like safety signalling and interlocking system and track renewals the new minister has to urgently address the issue the backlog of track renewals has grown at a time when traffic has increased eliminating unmanned level crossings which are the cause of many fatal accidents is another challenge on safety aspects bansal said my endeavour will be to make train journey safe and comfortable so that it remains a preferred mode of transport in the country he added we have to look into many aspects to see if we can cut expenditure where we can utilize the resources properly and if necessary how to go about the issue of fare with the larger objective of providing better services to the people