Passenger peril: Lack of maintenance for new trains on rickety tracks could put commuter safety at risk

The populist move to introduce 96 new trains and increase the frequency of another 23 announced in the Railway Budget on Wednesday will come at the cost of passengers' safety, senior railway officials said.



The creaky railway infrastructure is already stretched beyond its capacity, leaving little time for maintenance. With more trains set to hurtle through the same network - matters can only get worse.



Senior railway officials admitted that the capacity at maintenance yards is also limited and with a large number of trains being added each year purely out of political considerations, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep up with hectic maintenance schedules.



At least 60 people died when a speeding express rammed into a stationary passenger train near Kolkata in 2010

In fact, the expert committee headed by nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar had in its report submitted recently advised the railways 'to stop introducing new trains without commensurate infrastructure, including maintenance of corridors'.



'Today, the Indian Railways is using most corridors beyond 100 per cent and it is difficult to carry out planned and systematic maintenance on trunk routes (20,000 km of high-density network) as there is no time available because of excess traffic,' the report pointed out.

While railway minister Dinesh Trivedi has paid lip-service to safety, he has conveniently overlooked the vital recommendation made by the Kakodkar Committee.









HEADER HERE WORLD CLASS STATIONS: Fifty

world class stations and 100-plus model stations were proposed

STATUS: Even the bidding process has

not begun. Civic agencies in cities such

as Mumbai and Delhi are opposing the

plan, citing congestion and security issues



CATERING: With almost 3,000 complaints registered against catering and water supply services on trains, the railway promises to improve the quality of food in every Budget

STATUS: The rail ministry is yet to formulate the new catering policy guidelines and won’t be able to complete the tendering process till January 2013



DECONGESTING DELHI: Before the

2010 Games, former rail minister Lalu

Prasad had promised to decongest

stations in the Capital. The promise

was repeated in the last Budget

speech of Mamata Banerjee

STATUS: Proposals for new terminals

are still in cold storage as even land

acquisition formalities have not begun



HIGH-SPEED CORRIDORS: Dinesh Trivedi insisted such corridors linking major cities will lead to faster travel STATUS: The possibility of initiating the projects in the next five years is low and so no attempt has been made to estimate their cost

The report also pointed out that equally critical is the state of the ageing 3,000-plus rail bridges, which are not monitored scientifically and are a safety hazard each time a train passes over.



Senior railway officials believe that with additional trains, the quality of service being offered to passengers will also dip.

For instance, even prestigious trains such as the Chandigarh Shatabdi are delayed at times by 30 to 45 minutes outside the New Delhi Railway Station because there is no platform free to bring them in.



The large number of passenger trains also affects the movement of freight, which is the main revenue earner for the railways. Goods trains are made to wait to let passenger trains pass as there aren't enough tracks to accommodate such a large number of locomotives.



Because of the priority given to passenger trains, the average speed of goods trains' has come down to 25 km per hour.



While the railways had a market share of 65 per cent in the goods movement of the country in 1986-87, this has now come down to 30 per cent while that of the road sector has gone up from 34 per cent to 60 per cent.

Official figures show that the railways makes a loss in its passenger operations which has to be cross-subsidised by freight operations that bring in over 66 per cent of the total traffic earnings.



The increasing number of passenger trains will lead to further erosion of goods traffic and only worsen the financial health of the railways already in a precarious condition.

Mr Nobody Trivedi becomes somebody as he bites the bullet

Politics throws up too many occasions before ministers to defend decisions they believe are taken in national interest. But when under pressure, not many bite the bullet; they simply succumb and recoil.



In that sense, railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, who dared to increase general-class fare by 2 paisa a km and sleeper-class travel by 5 paisa a km, suddenly towers above at least two of his immediate predecessors.



That is, if Trivedi - almost always described as a mere nominee of his party leader Mamata Banerjee in Rail Bhavan - actually stands his ground in the troubled days ahead as he has been put on a virtual notice by his own party.



Lalu Prasad (left) and Mamata Banerjee (right) are the predecessors of railway minister Trivedi



'I don't care about the job. Bhagat Singh gave up his life for the country. I don't mind losing my job,' Trivedi said, soon after his party leaders bayed for his blood.

The minister described his Budget as 'economic', not 'political', because the railways must not go the Air India way.



The predecessors, who pale before Trivedi, include Banerjee herself, who, as railway minister, played full throttle to the populist gallery while the behemoth cried itself hoarse for revenues it so badly needed.



Railway minister Trivedi hiked rail fares in his budget on Wednesday

Banerjee, the self-proclaimed 'defender' of the poor, is not only seething but has stressed that Trivedi, who presented his maiden rail budget on Wednesday, will have to roll back the fare hike, come what may.



Else, she will name a new railway minister, a loss of prerogative that the PM has described as a compulsion of 'coalition dharma'.

The hike, for instance, means that a general-class journey between Delhi and Patna will cost Rs 20 more while those travelling with a reserved ticket will have to pay an extra Rs 50.



Having enjoyed escalation-free journeys for nine long years, passengers may not detest the hike so much. But the Trinamool Congress boss - who, even as West Bengal CM, is convincingly caught in the Left Front's trap of painting Kolkata's streets red even on a proposed 5 paisa hike in tram and bus fares - tends to think otherwise.



And, so, her reading out the riot act to the Barrackpore MP is no surprise. Neither Banerjee nor her predecessor Lalu Prasad increased train fare even by a paisa and won praise for it.



In fact, Lalu, who claims to have 'turned around' the railways' fortunes, had once reduced fares by Rs 1. As expected, he lambasted the fare hike.

'In my time the railways gave a surplus of Rs 7,000 crore. I gave huge relief to all and never tried to harass the common man,' he said.

Delhi gets nothing to show off

New Delhi does not seem to have featured in the railway minister's 2012-13 Budget plans. The Capital has been rewarded with no more than three new trains, of which only two originate from the city.



Apart from this, railway minister Dinesh Trivedi promised a 'pre-feasibility' study on the Delhi- Jaipur-Ajmer-Jodhpur corridor, as well as the reduction of travelling time between Delhi and Kolkata from 17 to 14 hours.



The two new trains - Delhi Sarai Rohilla-Udhampur AC Express (tri-weekly) and Bandra-Delhi Sarai Rohilla Express (weekly) - will depart from the Sarai Rohilla station. In addition to these, the Ajmer-Haridwar Express will also be routed through the Capital.

Apart from meeting the requirement of bigger parking area and better security and fog preventive technology at railway stations, funds are also required for maintenance of trains and stations.



The Railway Board in Delhi had recently forwarded an urgent request for funds - Rs 150 crore - to complete stalled projects. It wants money to develop arterial railway stations such as Nangloi and start the second phase of development work at the Anand Vihar railway station.



