Let The Indian Railways Go Public
by The Challenges faced by the Indian Railways and the proposed solution.
It is safe to say that at any given moment of the day, roughly around 15 million people are on the move in the trains that criss-cross the length and breadth of the nation. During 2001-02, 5000 million people travelled and on extrapolating to 2008-09, the figure swells upto 6500 million people, thanks to the special Garib rath trains, the volumes is always on the rise.
The Indian railways, which is around 156 years old, is still very much the same logistically, as it was at the time of independence. A majority of the bridges are of British times, in obscure condition; the track length isn’t much changed with even the New Delhi to Ahmedabad track of around thousand kilometres, still being a single line.
It’s highly intolerable to stand on the platform with the stinking tracks and cat sized rats jumping on the human excreta lying on the tracks… The stations are very much the same, still not breaking the colonial cocoon and marching ahead to an era of malls and multiplexes.
If I had to tell one organization, an entity, which has huuuuuuuge potential but currently uses 1% of it, i would grab the mic and proclaim, it is the Indian Railways!
Since independence, or i should say, since the 90s, India’s every other industry is on the rolls. Be it Telecom, that clearly exemplifies the India’s growth story, IT, BPO, or the Navratna PSUs, each one is just getting better of its performance in the last fiscal.
Alas! The Indian Railways remains like a white elephant. Not that it is loss-incurring, but it continues to be blind to its potential. Even now, fingers(punches!) have been posed against the supposed green bucking of the Railways under Laloo Yadav, who year after year continued to show profits to tune of Rs. 200 billion, even when populist measures were taken to cut down the passenger fare! Seems pretty much anomalous…
Mamata Bannerjee has ordered to issue a white paper on the matter, while presenting the budget in July, 2008.
So what are the blisters in the brand image of Indian railways?
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Post CommentManohar Avasthi
On January 24, 2010 at 4:11 am
I was searching for articles related to Indian Railways and found your blog. Though i wanted to dismiss your rant but thought against it. I\’m not sure whether you live in India or not. Also it\’s not clear when was the last time you traveled in an \”inefficient Indian train\”. First of all I agree with your assessment that Indian Railways has lots of problems. I\’m a die hard Indian Railways fan and a rail enthusiast in general. I had the opportunity to travel in Euro Rail,Singapore Rail, and here in Amtrak and Alaska Railroad. But unlike you i\’m not going to compare Indian Railways with the western rails. As i said earlier IR has lots of problems. Inefficient officials, cleanliness, stations etc etc. If few anti-social elements disagree with the govt then burn a train as you have shown here. The list goes on and on. But with all these setbacks IR is one of the most efficient railway system in the world. But how? The value you get for your money, that\’s how. You mentioned that Euro Rail takes only 2 hrs from London to Paris but you conveniently failed to mention that the ticket cost is from 39 pounds to 260 pounds depending upon what type ticket you get. Flexible or non-flexible. So the minimum you pay is Rs 3000 and max is Rs 20000 !!! Now compare that to New Delhi Bhopal Shatabdi – it costs you Rs 850/. Similarly Delhi-Mumbai Rajdhani in First Class AC costs you Rs 3300/ for about 1400 Kms. Now you do the math for a 1400 Kms journey in Euro Rail. Then there are lots of factors. Track capacity, coach types, track occupancy etc etc. And how foolishly you have mentioned that IR has remained the same over the past 50 years. The suggestions you put forth lack an ounce of technicality or the feasibility analysis. I\’ll go one by one.
The Way Ahead:
Service: I don\’t think you are aware of the feasibility studies going one and already conducted between the major cities of India. To this effect tracks are being upgraded and recently Indian govt has placed an order for track testing rig from Moog worth 4 million USD. This will enable to test the track capacity and subsequently increase the load capacity. Also India is getting stainless steel coaches from Germany. To improve speed and safety the tracks have to be super strengthened and coaches must have excellent suspension system. IR is going forward with this scheme. I\’m not sure whether you know this or not. So your first claim in busted.
Prevent the Train from Victimization: India has a population of 1.2 billion. Everyday some 8000-9000 trains crisscross the country. It\’s almost impossible to place adequate security for each train. But the latest railway budget has that provision. Again those security personnel are helpless against an angry mob of villagers. This one i agree with you. Stern action must be taken against the culprits. But for this the central govt needs to be more proactive. It\’s not the fault of IR.
Get it Corporatize – Again i think you are not aware of the IIMA and IR partnership. IR has been funding IIMA to do research and feasibility studies. Just google it and you\’ll find. Lot of their findings have been implemented. Ofcourse there is always room for improvement.
Way to go Public… This one is mentioned in detail in the book Bankruptcy to Billions by Sudhir Kumar. BTW do you know who is Sudhir Kumar. I highly doubt it.
Modernize- If you are not aware of any modernization that\’s going on in IR then you are in a state of denial. It\’s slow but it\’s happening for sure. And for God\’s sake don\’t try to compare it with Communist China. If they want to lay tracks then they just lay it. If anyone opposes then he/she is thrown into the jail. India is a democratic country.
Since you are not aware of any kind of studies that IR has been conducting, let me tell you that high speed bullet train feasibility study was conducted between Mumbai-Ahmedabad-Pune route. It will cost Rs 100-150 crore per kilometer.!!! I can give you many more examples on station modernization, track improvement, coach improvement etc. I\’m confident that within few years IR will be in a decent shape.
But before spewing anything do little bit of homework. You have no clue regarding Indian Railways. Agreed that it has problems but you tend to forget that its main job is to provide mass transit to the poor as well as the rich at an affordable price and safely.