Open Forum

New Delhi, 14 January 2016

Gearing Up Railways

TOUGH, BUT DOABLE

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

The Government is serious about rejuvenating India’s railways. Towards that end, it has set up the Rail Development Authority, a welcome step indeed.  Initially, the Authority would address issues relating to joint ventures and special purpose vehicles such as those for the dedicated freight corridors.

According to the concept note, this body headed by a Chairman and four members specializing in railways, infrastructure, finance, law management and consumer affairs would undertake four functions, namely fixing tariff, ensuring fair play, a level playing field for private investment, set standards of efficiency and performance and disseminate information. 

True, this measure would obviously bring about a much-desired change in the functioning of the railways, however it needs to be pointed out that the Authority would merely increase fares without giving due attention to betterment of passenger amenities.

Sadly, despite increase in fares, there has not been much improvement in most long distance trains except Rajdhanis, Durontos and Shatabdis along-with few special ones. Shockingly, in not a few trains have stinking toilets, worse they run out of water in some hours of the journey.   

Moreover, the efficiency level in the railway system is quite poor. Not only is it very difficult to get reservation in AC III tier or even in Sleeper Class primarily because a large part of the seats are kept in ‘tatkal’ quota and  another chunk is termed ‘EQ’ share. Consequently, it is virtually next to impossible for the aam aadmi to get reservation if he has to travel urgently.     

Undoubtedly, the recent decision to increase the reservation period from three to four months is a wrong decision. Also the quantum increase in cancellation charges of both reserved and unreserved tickets cannot be justified in any way. Think. It is not possible to plan any journey four months in advance, not to speak of travelling for official work.

In fact, possibly no country in the world has such a long reservation period. Analysts state this is just a ploy of indirectly collecting money as many people would be per forced to cancel reserved tickets.

Clearly, the system must change and expectedly, the new Authority would look into these issues. Alongside, the grievance redressal mechanism has to be strengthened at all points ---- in trains and at stations ---- whereby people would be free to lodge grievances complaints and get them redressed, as per guidelines of the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG).   

As regards privatization, which some believe the railways is pursuing, one can only assert that this should be allowed selectively. The massive financial requirement needed to improve passenger amenities, upgrade rolling stock, ensure proper maintenance, modernize coaches, increase the number of trains and take adequate safety measures needs to be seriously considered.

Therefore, keeping this in the background private participation should be selective. Questionably, if private players are involved in key areas of rail functioning, passenger fares would be beyond the reach of the common man. 

Notably, a recent decision has been taken to develop 400 railway stations by private parties to begin with. But one has to see how the private sector operates these and what benefits accrue to the people as also those who have invested in upgrading these stations.

Asserted Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu recently in Kolkata, “Big railway stations could be extended vertically and transformed into commercial projects.” 

One reason that may attract the private parties is to utilize space in and around stations to construct rooms where travellers could stay without having to search for hotels. If the rates are competitive, this could give good returns to the developers. 

Undeniably, there several issues which the Railway Ministry has to seriously consider and what needs to be done at this juncture. The entire administration needs to be overhauled along-with some sincerity and dedication inculcated both among gazetted and non-gazetted staff.

In this connection, the recent move to cut down on gazetted staff, keeping in view technological changes and advancement is welcomed. But alongside, the Government also needs more resources towards providing better services to passengers. This should be given top priority as also track renewal and expansion. China’s railway network has expanded at a much faster rate in the last decade than India which has resulted in a higher growth rate. 

Arguably, the Government needs to increase the speed of trains as it is .one of the slowest in the world. This can be done via track upgradation which does not require huge resources, another option is to introduce more bullet trains as is being done for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector.

Obviously, the costs involved in running these would be very high and the fare burden would have to be passed on to the passengers, most of whom may not prefer to travel by them as air travel cost would be less or the same. Alternatively, the investment required for bullet trains could be diverted to track renewal and track expansion, at least for the coming two years.  

Importantly, railway resources have to be judiciously used with focus on adding capacity and increasing trains speed to acceptable levels which is possible only through track upgradation and investment. This would benefit the common man than spends on bullet trains.

According to the railways estimates, it immediately requires Rs 800, 000 crores for modernization, a massive amount difficult to generate. Thus, the Government needs to think judiciously before taking any decision. Especially as yearly hikes of fares would hurt the aam aadmi who has no other mode of travel.

Clearly, the need of the hour is gearing up rail efficiency and stable manpower costs. As pointed out by Minister Prabhu, he plans to ensure energy-efficient, environment friendly infrastructure in the coming years by tying up with clean technology firms like GE and Alstom. Tough but doable. ---- INFA  

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)