Dubbing as "obsolete" the prevailing system of appointment to senior posts in railways which involves Cabinet clearance, railway minister Dinesh Trivedi on Tuesday pitched for a "drastic change" in the process.

"There are so many vacant posts of general manager (GM) Railways and these appointments are awaiting cabinet clearance. How will cabinet decide who will be my GM?", Trivedi asked.

There are 12 posts of GM lying vacant for a couple of months and though the panel of names has been shortlisted and sent for approval to the appointments committee of Cabinet, they are yet to get clearance. There are total of 26 posts of GM in Railways.

"If there will be an accident tomorrow, cabinet is not going to take the blame. I would be directly blamed. Something needs to be done about it.... It is obsolete," he said at a PHD conference here.

Trivedi said "there are so many obstacles. The system needs to be changed. It needs a drastic change to address the issue."

However, later he clarified that he is not blaming anybody.

"Let us not play blame game. The system needs to be changed and it should be transparent."

Referring to Adarsh housing society scam, he said, "One Adarsh scam does not mean everybody is corrupt."

On railways performances, he said there are challenges but there are also great opportunities in railways.

Trivedi also suggested creation of a new post of general manager, Coal, to market coal loading aggressively.

Asked about the possibility of fare hike, the railway minister suggested a debate on the issue. "Fare hike should not be announced unilaterally. Since railways belongs to the country, I am for seeking public opinion on it. Let the people decide," he said.

Asked how it would be done, he said a system should be evolved to know the people's response after putting the proposed fare structure in public domain.

The planning commission, railway federations and a parliamentary committee have recommended rationalisation of train fares which have not been touched for the last eight years.

Advocating introduction of dynamic fares in railways, Trivedi said, "Like air fare, we can also opt for dynamic fare system. There are so many ways to do this.

"Fuel component can be segregated from the fare. If fuel price increases then automatically train fare will go also go up."

However, he hastened to add that nothing should be done to add burden on the common man.

On the possibility of hiking AC fares, he said, "Even if we hike the fare of higher class, the revenue earning will be minimum because 91 per cent of the passengers travel in general class."

Admitting a mismatch in passenger fare and freight rate, he said, "We have to give a relook at our entire fare and freight structure."

On PPP projects, he said, "If it is a win-win situation then only Railways will enter into private-public partnership business.