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Indian Railways (IRs), the world’s fourth-largest network by size, has a route length covering approximately 68,155 km. It operates over 22,669 trains a day, sixty per cent of which are the ones transporting about 844 crore passengers and 123 crore tonnes of freight; two-third of its total revenue is from freight and only 27.3 per cent are passenger receipts. It is the eighth employer in the world employing about 1.227 people. It suffers from chronic under-investment, low-capacity augmentation, congestion, and over-utilisation, safety problems and poor-quality service, leading to poor morale, reduced efficiency, sub-optimal freight and passenger traffic, fewer financial resources; and deteriorating operating ratio. The government on the recommendations of a high-level committee suggested ways to mobilise resources and restructure the Railway Board; invited private sector companies to operate 151 trains over 100 routes by April 2023 bringing in an investment of ₹30,000 crore. The committee laid down a time frame of five years for implementation of its recommendations. The present study spread over five sections discusses observations and recommendations of the committee and suggests the outsourcing of some of its non-core functions like repair and maintenance workshops, manicuring units, washing of trains, security, and employees’ facilities like medical and education.

CSR is an age-old concept and business organisations have been contributing towards social and community development. It is the deliberate inclusion of public concern into corporate decisions with a fundamental principle not only as a public policy. but also that corporates should be responsive to social issues and it revolves around sustainability, accountability and transparency. Thus, CSR involves relocation of resources from private to public bodies for environmental and social benefits and integrates organisational core business with social and environmental concerns of the community; so as to provide impetus to economic development and improve the living standard of the people.CSR has been used differently in various countries and approaches followed are categorised in three broad heads as: CSR as corporate philanthropy wherein contribution is for activities in the areas such as arts, health, education, social welfare, environment, housing, sanitation; or CSR as value creation with a focus on core business; or CSR as risk management to mitigate operational risks and supports external relationships.India is the only country where CSR has been enforced by a legislation wherein profitable listed companies above a certain size are required to contribute a certain percentage of profit towards prescribed activities. In other countries it is by voluntary measures which vary from country to country. Studies have shown that total CSR spend fall short of the government mandate of two per cent of profit. Education and healthcare attracted the largest CSR spend, while empowering women, support for senior citizens and armed forces veterans saw no takers. The study highlights the need to examine whether mandatory approach to CSR would be effective than the voluntary incentivised scheme prevalent earlier in India and elsewhere.