By Nantoo Banerjee
The Indian Railways is no longer considered as the union government’s most important public contact platform. This is despite the fact that around 500 million passengers took train journeys across the country during last April alone. The number keeps on rising. The Railways loaded 128.29 million tonnes (MT) of freight during the month. Among the goods loaded were 57.64 MT of coal, 14.88 MT of iron ore, 5.24 MT of iron and steel, 6.79 MT of cement, 4.75 MT of clinkers, 3.85 MT of foodgrains, 4.1 MT of fertilisers, 4.16 MT of mineral oil and 6.57 MT of container cargoes. By any standard, it would appear to be a wonderful performance by the national carrier. Unfortunately, the government is not impressed. The national asset was set for privatization soon after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came to power in 2014.
The government did everything to ensure that the tradition of Indian Railways is erased almost from day one. In 2014 itself, the government had set up the Bibek Debroy Committee to activate resources (read private participation) for significant railway projects and restructure the railway ministry and the railway board. The move to privatise, instead of fully liberalise, stemmed from the Debroy panel report which advocated “liberalization and not privatization”. In 2016, the government decided to merge the independent Railway Budget with the Union Budget ending the 92-year-old tradition of maintaining a separate budget for the railways ahead of the union budget.
Subsequently, the government kick-started the Indian Railways privatization plan by inviting ‘requests for qualifications’ from interested private players. The bid was for running 151 trains in 109 pairs of routes with each train to have 16 coaches. The government expected a total private sector investment of around Rs.30,000 crore. Interestingly, there were few private bidders. While the government wanted private capital and technology to improve the rail infrastructure; better maintenance of coaches, engines and tracks, leading to reduced accidents; and introduction of competition to ensure better facilities for passengers, it did not want to give up the control. Private bidders sought a far more equal partnership. The arrangement failed to work.
The government may not have taken its failure to privatise the railways lightly. In fact, it would appear to be the biggest failure of a major policy decision of the NDA government so far. The department has since been treated in a stepmotherly way without even a full-time minister. The ministry, which was once led by such political stalwarts as Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jagjivan Ram, T.A. Pai, Kamalapati Tripathi, A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chaudhury, George Fernandes and Laloo Prasad Yadav, has been under a part-time minister, Ashwani Vaishnav, a former bureaucrat and businessman turned Rajya Sabha member. Ashwani Vaishnav is also in charge of such key ministerial portfolios as Information and Broadcasting and Electronics and Information Technology.
The biggest issue before Indian Railways is now the huge shortage of its operational staff. The staff shortage is systematically hurting the operations of Indian Railways. It has multiplied over the years since the government’s privatization bid collapsed. According to a statement by Railway Minister Vaishnav in the Rajya Sabha on February 3, last year, there were almost 3.15 lakh vacant posts out of the total sanctioned strength of the railway workforce. A massive loco pilot shortage has led to unethical, if not dangerous, work practices in the railways, forcing the existing loco pilots to work overtime, often for long hours and continuous night shifts without much rest. The goods train pilots are most stressed. This is primarily responsible for fatal train crashes. Railway passengers and staff must thank their lucky stars for their accident-free journey. Hats off to the railways’ overstressed loco pilots that they have been generally able to keep their cool to safely drive the trains to their designated destinations.
The NDA government, now in its third term in office, did not wake up even after the most horrific Balasore train collision tragedy in which over 300 people were killed after three trains rammed into each other in the eastern state of Odisha. Between 2019 and 2024, there have been three train accidents on average per month. Finally, the Sealdah-bound Kanchanjunga Express accident, last week, in which a dozen were killed and several dozens more were seriously injured after a goods train rammed into a stationary passenger train near the New Jalpaiguri Junction, seemed to have opened the eyes of the government. Ironically, even before a formal investigation, Railway Board chairperson Jaya Varma Sinha claimed the collision occurred as the goods train disregarded the signal, indirectly blaming the pilot. The government decided to act fast to address the shortage of loco pilots and stop flogging them in exchange for overtime payments.
Last week, the Railway Recruitment Board was quick to revise the number of loco pilot vacancies for the current year. The number was raised by over three times –- from the originally notified vacancy of 5,696 positions to 18,799 in 16 zones across the country. Hopefully, the selection process will be completed without any further delay. The current level of loco pilot shortage is conservatively estimated at 22,000. The Indian Railways, the world’s largest railway network under a single management, has around 100,000 loco pilots (drivers) and train managers (guards). They form the basic functioning team, responsible for train operation. The latest Railway Recruitment Board notice indicates the railways is operating with at least 20 percent shortage of loco pilots. This is dangerous and unacceptable. It may be the main cause of such accidents involving two or more pairs of trains ramming into each other.
Surprisingly, the rail ministry under the NDA government, like its predecessors, has been busier with less important programmes such as branding of new trains such as Bande Bharat, superfast trains or bullet trains and high speed corridors without paying enough attention to rail safety, maintenance of operational schedules, cleanliness of coaches and toilets, seat conditions, and the gap between the trains and platform edges for the comfort of passengers. ‘Garib Rath’ was the first branded train started in 2006 by the then Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav, for lower income class passengers. It was flagged from Saharsa in Bihar to Amritsar in Punjab. Almost every railway minister started new trains to serve his or her state. In the process, other more important operational aspects were ignored. Hopefully, things will change for the better under the new NDA. (IPA Service)