A point, missed by most, is the antiquated and dilapidated infrastructure of the railways. Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on 13 December 2019, the Railway Minister informed that there were 38,850 railway bridges, which were more than 100 years old. Much of the railway track is more than fifty years old, with more than 100 per cent utilisation on trunk routes. Train bogies of even prestigious trains, like Rajdhani, are more than twenty years old
Representational Image (File Photo)
A point, missed by most, is the antiquated and dilapidated infrastructure of the railways. Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on 13 December 2019, the Railway Minister informed that there were 38,850 railway bridges, which were more than 100 years old. Much of the railway track is more than fifty years old, with more than 100 per cent utilisation on trunk routes. Train bogies of even prestigious trains, like Rajdhani, are more than twenty years old
It is truly said that railways are the lifeline of India. After democratisation of air travel, trains have receded from public consciousness, though most Indians still travel by train ~ around 13,169 trains carry, in aggregate, more than 2.20 crore passengers every day. Great metropolises like Kolkata and Mumbai come to a halt if suburban trains are disrupted. Running around 8,500 freight trains, the railways transport more than 1400 million tonnes of freight, every year. Indian Railways have a long history; established by the British to manage their Indian Empire, the Railways soon became a uniquely Indian enterprise.
At the time of Independence, different sections of the rail network were run profitably by different private companies; for example, the GIP Railway preceded the Central Railway, and Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway was the precursor of Western Railway. Post-Independence, from a profitable commercial enterprise, Indian Railways changed into a Government department, mutating, in no time, to a meal train for politicians.
Armies of youth were given jobs in the railways on political considerations, trains were started from the Rail Minister’s constituency, ticketless travel was ignored, hardly any investment was made for proper maintenance of tracks and rolling stock or for improvement of railway infrastructure. Hardly any new routes were commissioned. The result was a creaky and outdated railway system, with a poor record of safety and punctuality.
A comparison with China is instructive. In 1949, China had only about one-third of our track length, but today China’s track length is double of ours. China has 25,000 km of High-Speed tracks where trains run at 350 km per hour. China is now running freight trains up to Madrid, while we don’t run trains even up to Nepal. Poor upkeep of the Rail Museum at Delhi reflects the callous attitude and lack of vision of the Indian Railways. Iconic train engines, which are an invaluable national heritage, are stabled in the open at the mercy of the elements. Marketed better, the Rail Museum could be a big draw for train enthusiasts. With the elite not travelling by trains any longer, railways have lost much of their glamour. The Railway Budget has now been subsumed in the General Budget and railways are hardly in the news, except for some momentous event like the launch of a new train or some railway accident. It would appear, that railways have been relegated to a minor department of the Government ~ which is ill-advised, given the complexity and vastness of the operations of Indian Railways.
Bureaucratic control over railway means continuing with policies like prioritising passenger traffic, particularly of premium classes ~ which is a losing proposition ~ over goods traffic. Presently, on most days, Rajdhani AC 2 Tier or AC First Class fares between metro cities are higher than airfares, making trains the last option for premium passengers. It could be much better for both passengers and railway finances if trains are run with only AC- 3 Tier and Sleeper Class coaches.
The unfortunate three-train accident at Bahanaga Bazar station, in Odisha, which resulted in around 300 casualities has highlighted the neglect of safety considerations in the railways. Though the exact cause of the mishap will only be revealed by a statutory inquiry, by the Commissioner of Railway Safety, contributory causes are, however, manifest. Reports indicate that there is a huge shortage of 3.15 lakh frontline employees in the railways, which is around 30 per cent of the working strength ~ a large percentage of the vacant posts being in safety staff. KAVACH, an Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system, earlier known as the Train Collision Avoidance System, indigenously developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in 2011-12, has been deployed on only 2 per cent of the railway network, though the cost of KAVACH is only Rs. 50 lakh per kilometre. Incidentally, KAVACH is a Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL-4) certified technology with the probability of error being one in 10,000 years.
According to the CAG Report “Performance Audit on Derailment in Indian Railways” (tabled in Parliament in December 2022) “maintenance of tracks” is the major factor in most derailments. The Report goes on to state how track maintenance has been neglected, with allotment of funds for track renewal works declining over the years, and such funds remaining largely unspent. The Report goes on to mention that derailments accounted for 75 per cent of the total “consequential accidents.” Incidentally, the recent train accident also involved the derailment of Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express.
Thankfully, massive relief and rescue efforts have prevented further agony for the survivors. After the Bahanaga Bazar train accident, PM Modi has vowed the strictest possible action against those responsible for the mishaps. Mr. Modi’s views have been echoed by Mr. Pradhan, the Union Minister from Odisha. Probably, ignoring the rot in the railway system, the enquiry into the recent accident will find some lower-level functionary, driver, guard, signal maintainer or linesman responsible for the mishap and public conscience will have to be satisfied by his removal, or even imprisonment.
A point, missed by most, is the antiquated and dilapidated infrastructure of the railways. Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on December 13, 2019, the Railway Minister informed that there were 38,850 railway bridges, which were more than 100 years old. Recently, there were a series of railway overbridge collapses; a horrific bridge collapse in Mumbai in 2019 left 22 passengers dead, consequent to which the Railways promised a complete audit of all foot overbridges.
However, a similar tragedy took place, again in Mumbai, within one year. Much of the railway track is more than fifty years old, with more than 100 per cent utilisation on trunk routes. Train bogies of even prestigious trains, like Rajdhani, are more than twenty years old. However, finances earmarked for development and renewal are minuscule; Indian Railways earned revenues of Rs. 2.40 lakh crore for the financial year 2022-23, but it earmarked only Rs.700 crore for Depreciation Reserve Fund (DRF) (down from Rs.7,900 crores in 2014), Rs.1,000 crore for Development Fund (DF) and Rs.1,516.72 crore for Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK).
No wonder, the allegation that the railways concentrate on high-visibility projects to the exclusion of maintenance of systematically important infrastructure has a ring of truth. The lopsided priorities of the Railway Ministry were mentioned in a CAG report, tabled in Parliament in August 2018: “The station development/redevelopment plans mainly address on facilities for the passengers on the station premises and facade of stations only and not on removing constraints and bottlenecks for ensuring timely arrival and departure of trains to/from the stations, which should be one of the most important parameters of the quality of service being provided to the passengers.”
According to the CAG, most railway stations did not have enough platforms to accommodate the trains passing through them, which resulted in delays, yet the Rs.1 lakh crore station redevelopment plan did not address this problem or the problem of insufficient washing and examination pit lines and stabling lines. Frequent late running of trains often results in inadequate time being available for safetyrelated examination of coaches.
Non-availability of important spares in time is another reason for less-than-optimal fitness of rolling stock. A number of high-level committees have studied the functioning of Indian Railways, the latest being the Debroy Committee, appointed by the present Government, which mostly concentrated on structural reforms at the topmost level, and not on the fruitful utilisation of the humungous railway workforce exceeding 11.75 lakh men and women. Consequent to the Debroy Committee Report, officers from all eight railway services were amalgamated into a single Indian Railway Management Service. Many experts feel that this step would further dilute domain expertise, which may not augur well for the railways.
A reality check of railway policies is overdue; a passenger survey would reveal that most passengers want train travel to be safe, comfortable and punctual, rather than railway stations having the look of airport lounges. Systemic changes are required; in view of rapid technological changes, work responsibilities have to be revised at all levels. Demoralised railwaymen have to be enthused. Accountability has to be enforced. Focus on core activities has to be increased, peripheral activities like running of schools and hospitals, has to be curtailed. With its glorious 170-year history, the Railways will come out of the present crisis unscathed, only astute leadership is required.
(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)
17 hours ago
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and the entire ruling elite are desperately trying to cover up their responsibility for the decades of rail infrastructure neglect and cost-cutting that caused last Friday’s three-train crash in the eastern Indian state Odisha. The Balasore disaster—the deadliest in India in more than a quarter of a century—killed nearly 300 passengers and injured over 1,000.
People try to identify bodies of their relatives who were in Friday's train accident in Balasore, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in Bhubaneswar, in the eastern state of Odisha, India, Tuesday, June 6, 2023. [AP Photo]
The media continues to report distraught families of victims still trying to locate loved ones among the dead. Short-staffed hospitals are struggling to treat the overwhelming number of injured passengers.
“Outside hospital, two large screens cycled through photos of bodies, the faces so bloodied and charred that they were hardly recognizable,” the Associated Press said, noting that many of the dead are unclaimed.
“I have been to all the hospitals and I’ve found out nothing,” Lalati Devi, told CNN. She was looking for her 22-year-old son. Many others are going through the same tragic experience.
While the press has reported that over 1,000 people were injured in the crash, there are few details. Some indication of the extent of the injuries, however, was provided by Anushuman Purohi, one of the survivors. “I actually heard the wail of humanity, crying out in pain, crying out for water and crying out for help,” he said to CNN.
“There were a lot of people lying on the tracks, they were injured, there was blood everywhere, there were broken bones, and it was time for us to stop thinking about ourselves and help the injured… It was chaos, it was something I can really not describe… I saw a head without a body, I saw skulls crushed, I saw bodies completely crushed by the metal, it was horrifying.”
On June 4, the
Hindu published an article titled, “Senior official flagged serious flaws in Indian Railways’ signalling system in February.” The story referred to a letter by Principal Chief Operation Manager Hari Shankar to the principal chief signal and telecommunications engineer, over a “serious unsafe incident” that occurred at the Hosadurga Road Station in the Birur-Chikjajur section of the Mysore Division in southern India on February 8 this year.
Like the Odisha incident, a signal was given to the Sampark Kranthi Express for passing on one line but the path was altered to another track where a goods train was stationed. A head-on collision between the two trains was only averted because of the alertness of the train’s locomotive engineer who brought it to a halt.
Shankar’s letter warned: “The present incident must be viewed very seriously and immediate corrective actions are required to be taken to rectify the system faults and also sensitizing the staff for not venturing into shortcuts leading to a major mishap.” Last Friday’s tragedy occurred precisely because this warning was totally ignored by authorities.
Prime Minister Modi, in a clear attempt to cover up his government’s responsibility for the Odisha disaster, declared, “Whoever made the mistake, strong action will be taken.”
Indeed, Modi and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw have already set the stage on how any “inquiry” into the train crash will proceed by announcing that it would involve the central government-controlled Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In fact, the CBI was pushed to start its own investigation on Monday, long before the railway ministry has completed its findings.
Former Union Revenue Secretary E.A.S. Sarma challenging the rapid involvement of the CBI, told the
Wire: “To me, it appears to be a move to mislead the public about the larger issues of failure in governance at the level of the Ministry of Railways.”
Modi and his railway minister are now involved in a desperate damage-control exercise. They are worried that the train disaster is trashing the government’s global image and could impact on the prime minister’s fortunes in next year’s general elections.
The Modi administration and successive Indian governments over decades have consciously allowed the rundown of vital services, such as the vast railway network, which is crucial for millions of workers and the rural poor. There are a staggering 8.4 billion passenger trips across the network each year.
Contemptuous of the transport safety of workers and the rural poor, who cannot afford private vehicles or air travel, India’s ruling elite has failed to fully implement the sort of advanced technologies that prevent “human errors” and “signal failures.” Railway officials have admitted that the “Kavach” anti-collision system was not available on the rail route where Friday’s accident occurred.
Railway Board should reconsider running super-fast trains, recommends the Commission
AdminJune 8, 2023
Statement on Odisha railway accident The Commission, at the outset, wishes to express its deep concern at the occurrence of such a ghastly accident as the one that took place in Odisha recently. The Commission further wishes to express its grief at the death of more than 280 persons and injuries suffered by hundreds of others.
Indian Railways (IR) is among the largest of the CPSUs in the country, annually moving 8.71 billion tonne-km of freight, 500 million passenger-km of passenger, employing more than 1.2 million personnel, who are professionally among the best in the world. IR provides one of the largest social security covers in the country, offering travel facilities at affordable charges for millions of short and medium-distance travellers belonging to low-income groups.
In particular, the Commission wishes its appreciation to thousands of local villagers who spontaneously provided immediate relief to injured passengers. The prompt way in which the NDRF personnel rose to the occasion is commendable.
Misplaced priorities and inadequate intervention on safety
In view of the critical dependence of the economy on railways and the increasing demand for railway movement of both freight and passenger traffic, the Railways ought to make additional investments in its basic infrastructure facilities such as the carrying capacity of its aging tracks, the signalling systems, the anti-collision systems (Kavach), and other auxiliary facilities, crucially required for enhancing the safety of railway movement and its capacity. Of late, the policymakers have chosen to introduce high-speed passenger trains such as bullet trains and Vande Bharats, which in turn call for matching investments in the railway infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the emphasis placed by the policymakers on speed has not been matched by their focus on safety, resulting in several ghastly accidents such as the latest accident thatoccurred in Odisha near Balasore. While one expects the planners in the Ministry of Railways to make a professional analysis of the factors that have led to such accidents and draw lessons to improve the existing safety systems, accidents come and go by without lessons drawn.
When an accident takes place, the senior public functionaries seem to feel satisfied by announcing palliatives such as ex-gratia relief for the victims and their families and displaying sentiment and emotion, knowing well that such limited relief does not address the immense human trauma to which the affected families are subject. It is also not uncommon to find senior public functionaries to place the blame on sabotage, rather than the technical factors and the institutional system for governance that lie behind those accidents. The latest accident in Odisha is yet another example of this.
Ignored Anil Kakodar committee recommendations, Justice Khanna Committee Report and CAG observations
There have been several reports on the ways and means of enhancing safety in railways, including those submitted by technical experts to the Railway Board, the reports submitted by the CAG to the Parliament and comprehensive reports brought out by Parliament Committees. A review of the action taken on each of these reports shows how the Ministry is yet to act on each of the important recommendations in those reports. For example, the High Level Safety Review Committee (“Kakodkar Committee”) submitted their report in 2012 and made several far reaching recommendations on railway safety which include the setting up of an independent statutory railway safety authority, strengthening of the RDSO and the adoption of an Advanced Signalling System (akin to the European Train Control System) for the entire trunk route length of 19,000 km within 5 years. More than a decade has elapsed since then but such an independent regulatory authority, directly accountable to the Parliament, is yet to be set up. As far as the recommendation on the signalling system is concerned, the Ministry could have involved highly professional CPSEs such as Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Central Electronics Ltd (CEL) in locating the most advanced signalling technologies in the world and indigenised the same for adoption in IR, which has not been the case.
Acute congestion on the trunk routes:
Today rail in India suffers from subpar safety performance and slow speed of trains. Both these problems have to be dealt with together, one at the cost of the other would be undesirable for the future of rail transport in the country, particularly passenger travel. By Railway Board’s own data in the National Rail Plan, congestion has reached critical levels on about 10,000 km of the trunk routes (the quadrilateral and the two diagonals and some other routes) which are carrying trains at 125 to 150% of the capacity against the desirable limit of 70 to 90% capacity utilization. This acute congestion has resulted in inadequate windows of traffic blocks for the essential routine repair and maintenance of the track and other line infrastructure and insufficient slack to deal with operational hindrances and emergencies. Overcrowding in trains, particularly in the non-AC general and sleeper class coaches, is another serious concern which also results in higher fatalities in accidents. Acute congestion on the trunk routes and overcrowding in trains are adversely impacting both safety and speed.
The Vision 2020 plan for the future growth and expansion of Indian Railways, presented to the Parliament in 2009, had envisaged raising of speed on the existing trunk routes to 160-200 km/ph and building new higher speed lines. Evidently, this acute congestion on the critical trunk routes is the main reason for the failure to raise speed on the existing lines through upgradation of track, signals etc to compete with the road and air modes. No new lines have been constructed on trunk routes to cater to the growing demand for more trains.
Demands a comprehensive systemic evaluation
RDSO seems to have relied on a few private companies for introducing electronic signal locking systems such as Block Proving by Axle Counter (BPAC) using UFSBI. Considering that the indications so far in the specific case of the Odisha accident point to a possible failure of the BPAC system, it calls for a technical review of the functioning of BPAC systems, the extent to which they are failure-proof and their vulnerability to manual interference or manual lapses. Such an examination will be possible if the factors leading to the accident are first subject to a systematic technical evaluation rather than being hastily subject to an investigation by the CBI, as is the case now, on a somewhat subjective assumption that the accident was caused by sabotage.
The Commission has come across a disturbing communication dated 9-2-2023 from PCOM, South Western Railway (it is available in the public domain) on the failure of the BPAC system at Hosadurga Road station of Birur-Chikjajur section of Mysore division on 8-2-2023, involving Sampark Kranti Express, leading to an “averted head-on collision” with a goods train. This was analert that should have woken up the Railway Board to the possibility of the BPAC systems failing at times. The Commission wonders whether the Ministry has acted on such an important alert and ordered a thorough evaluation of the BPAC systems in position. This also brings us to the question whether the RDSO needs further strengthening.
Demands filling of vacancies and an end to outsourcing and privatization
The Commission wishes to point out that whenever an accident such as the recent one in Odisha takes place, the tendency on the part of the Ministry is to presume that there are manual lapses and hold the lower-level functionaries such as the railway station personnel responsible for the accident rather than introspecting on whether its own policies and programmes have indirectly contributed to the recurrence of such accidents. The complete lack of concern shown for the filling of vacancies in
Railways which is more than 3 lakhs, increasing contractual labour replacing regular ones, the efforts on asset monetisation and privatisation need to be mentioned as the other important example of misplaced priorities. The Parliamentary Committee on railway safety pointed out that 60% vacancy among staff for maintenance of tracks, inspection of railway bridges etc. has adversely affected track maintenance and inspection, which is crucial for minimizing the occurrence of accidents.
Speed vs Safety:
While faster trains no doubt help Railways provide relief to passengers, though a small proportion of the total volume of passenger traffic, thus helping it to compete with road transport and airlines, increasing the speed of trains in a congested section will slow down other passenger trains catering to short- and medium-distance, low-income passengers as well as freight trains. In fact, if at all speeding train movement is to be considered, it should be in the case of freight-carrying trains, to maximize economic returns.
The Commission feels that zero-tolerance for accidents is far more important than indiscriminately launching super-fast trains such as Vande Bharats. The highest priority should be given to safety, before introducing any more super-fast trains.
The Commission makes the following recommendations:
- The Railway Board must carry out an analysis on the adverse impact of super-fast Vande Bharats will have on the average speed of other trains on which lakhs of short-distance passengers who cannot afford to pay heavy charges depend. The Railway Board should not continue to launch more and more speeding Vande Bharats, without ascertaining the speed-worthiness of the tracks and the efficacy of the BPAC systems.
- Considering that there was already one serious instance of failure of the BPAC system on 8-2-2023 in the South West Railways, and one more now in Odisha, causing a large number of fatalities and injuries and the consequent human trauma, the Railway Board should reconsider running super-fast trains, knowing well that there is a possibility of more such BPAC failures occurring. To provide accident-free railway travel, the Ministry of Railways should shift its focus from speed to safety.
- To deal with the chronic problem of heavy congestion, which has reached critical levels on about 10,000 route kilometer of trunk routes, Railway Board should come with a detailed long term plan for removing the chronic bottlenecks and upgrading the existing lines for 160-200 kmph on key trunk routes and adding new double-track lines for the higher speed of 200-250 kmph. The plan should not only be prepared but diligently adhered to in the next 10 to 15 years.
- As far as accountability for the lapses that led to the Odisha accident is concerned, the Commission feels that those at senior levels in the government and in the Railway Ministry should own it more than those at the lower levels.
- Considering the magnitude of the accident and the wide range of complex technical issues, instead of CBI which has a history of inordinate delays (NIA has not filed any report on the Kuneru and Kanpur accident cases though 7 years have passed) a panel of three Commissioners of Safety (to be chosen by the Chief Commissioner of Safety) should be constituted to complete the study started by one Commissioner of Safety which should also look at the system failures like non-utilisation of funds allotted, huge vacancies in the safety category staff, inadequate upgradation of the existing trunk routes and adding new double-track lines on the key trunk routes to eliminate congestion, independence of the Railway board, non-implementation of earlier recommendations and plans, and suggest clear steps to be taken. A panel of three CRSs instead of just one can be expected to do a more thorough technical examination and be less susceptible to outside pressures. In the present scheme of safety regulation, the Railway Safety Commissioner submits his report to the Railway Ministry. The experience so far is that the Ministry often glosses over the findings, without effective follow-up action. In order to obviate the scope for it, we feel that all Railway Safety Commissioners’ reports be placed before the Parliament for effective action. The RDSO should collaborate with IITs, CSIR labs, Universities to develop technologies/ adopt technologies to suit our country,
and to carry out studies on range of topics such as demand and capacity, safety, punctuality, competition offered by the growing road and air modes and prepare a long time road map instead of non-implemented National Railway Plan.
- The focus should be on strengthening the Public sector Railways instead of talking of Privatisation creating a confusion and demoralisation in the minds of executives and employees, filling up of all vacancies immediately, converting contract employees into permanent employees with accountability and development of appropriate technologies.
- Governance is crucial, autonomy with accountability should be provided to the Railway Board instead of making it sub servient to the Minister and Parliament’s supervision should be strengthened.
- Bring back Rail Budget instead of submerging it with the union budget as it existed before.
- Instead of finding scape goats and trying to shift blame, the Govt and Railway Ministry should own up responsibility and start remedial action as suggested.
- Invest in renewal of over aged assets like track, bridge, signal etc and clear arrears. Draw effective plan for dedicated freight corridors ,dedicated express lines, expansion of network, increase the average speed of goods trains and passenger services and to increase the railway share of goods and passengers with government investments like done by China 11. The declining share of Railways in the transport sector should be stopped and rail’s share should be increased to provide the social security and safety at affordable rates, reasonable speed and adequate comfort to the majority of the Citizens.
- The Commission is setting up a Task Force to monitor the action taken by the Ministry of Railways on the People’s Commission’s recommendations above, so that the
Commission may keep the public at large of the action taken.
The above report is based on the press release/recommendations spelt out by Peoples’ Commission on Public Sector and Public Services
