Monopoly

Monopoly means a market where there is only one seller of a particular good or
service.

Characteristics
Only one single seller in the market. There is no competition.

Advantages of monopoly
Monopolies can afford to invest in latest technology and machinery in order to be
efficient and to avoid competition.

Disadvantages of monopoly 
Poor level of service.
 Introduction to Indian Railways
Indian Railways has been serving the people of India for over 150 years. During the
ups and downs of country, this organization operated as a great integrating force and
assisted the economic structure of India. Indian Railways also facilitated in speeding
up the growth of industry and agriculture. In official terms, Indian Railways (IR) is a
department of the Indian Government that works under the Ministry of Railways. The
IR has been given the charge to operate the rail network in India. 
Indian Railways (IR) is the state-owned railway company of India. Indian Railways
had, until very recently, a monopoly on the country’s rail transport. It is one of the
largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting just over six billion
passengers and almost 750 million tonnes of freight annually. IR is the world’s largest
commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees.
How are the railways of india a monopoly market?

Indian Railways are one of basic infrastructure support of India.

Like all infrastructure resources e.g. iron and steel, aluminium, oil
and petroleum, LPG, the Indian railways are basic transportation
mode of the common man.

Also the government owns the railways. There is a separate

railways budget which is planned every year in the planning cycle.

Govt can sell off the railways or at least their parts to pvt
operators. But that has not yet happened in India. There are some
SPV (Special Purpose Vehicles) projects which railways have
undertaken in public and pvt participation, but nothing on the lines
of divesting the railways to pvt players. It might be a good idea.
But the railways today are one of largest, cheapest mode of
transportation. They are also one of most profit making public
sector enterprise.

In that sense the Indian railways is not a monopoly but a govt

controlled organization.

If we talk in the context of transportation sector: Indian railways is

definitely not a monopoly, we have air travel, land travel, sea
travel modes too....but yeah Indian Railways would be largest in
that sector too and hence we could call it a monopoly in that
sense
The monopoly of Indian Railways should be broken
On a Sunday evening me and my friends planned to go watch a movie. Very reluctant to
take my two wheeler out, I decided to go by local train. Only one counter was open out
of the two and not being a regular user of local train service, I did not buy a smart card
to get tickets from the ticketing machine. And not to my surprise, there was a long
queue. A train leaves the platform and I curse myself for not coming a little early. And
relaxingly another guy walks in and opens the second counter. As expected half the
queue jumps to the just opened counter. And the second queue becomes as long as the
first. Both the ticket counter guys are slow and another train leaves on the other side.

While the customers standing behind me curse the ticket counter guys for their speed,
it’s my turn and i give twenty rupees to the counter guy and ask for ticket. He
immediately asks for change and I said that I had no change and the guy says he wants
change and gives my twenty rupee note back. I said that I’ll wait and I let the other
persons go. After some time I went back and asked for the ticket. He stared at me and
asked why can’t you go around and bring change. WT*, he has more than enough
change and doesn’t want to give. He wants me to run around and get change. Who
should I go and ask? Does he want me to become a forced customer to a vendor on the
platform? He said that he did all this when he was young and remarked it as a gimmick.
What’s a gimmick here? Yes, I’m lazy to go around and bring change, more over I hate
becoming a forced customer for the sake of change. Who would give change for free on
the platform? Even if some one did, why can’t the ticket counter guy give change to his
CUSTOMER, when he has enough? I dint want to start an argument for there were
many people waiting for their turn to get tickets. Then waiting for the train to come, I
started thinking of why these guys are so thick skinned and don’t understand the needs
and hurry of their customers.

Reason Why should the monopoly be broken?

Innovation: The typical government employee blood is very unwilling to innovate. They
don’t do any thing revolutionary, and everything should come as a reform from the top.
If road transport went from dabba red colored buses to the volvos, where should
railways be, being in the picture for 150 years? Is any railway coach disabled friendly?
The only good thing about railways is the reservation system.

Laziness of employees: The employees are very lazy in their work. Here I would like to
share my personal experience. One evening I had to rush to santacruz for some urgent
work as I was standing in queue it was the lunch time going on and it was barely 5
minutes left for the lunch to get over but I had to wait for 15 minutes to get my ticket. All
were shouting to open the counter but the plea felt on deaf ears . I mean it has become
regular routine. The employees are damn lazy. They as much time as they want.