Late last year, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Indian Railways (IR) castigated the for squandering money on import deals which would not fully satisfy India's needs for indigenisation of technology. Down To Earth discovered that though electrification seems to be the thrust area of the IR, the ministry's internal documents raised many uncomfortable questions about the economic viability of the plans. The West is now pushing train travel as the most efficient and environmentally benign mode of transportation. But our inquiries into the state of Indian Railways exposed the tracks being charted out by the planners as myopic and import-intensive
Geared to derail
A WESTERN film critic, much moved by
the scenes of meandering railway lines
and leisurely paced trains in Satyajit
Ray's films, once commented upon the
"mesmeric quality" of Indian trains. But
that perhaps exemplifies the old adage:
all that glitters is not gold. In fact, the
state of the Indian Railways (IR), the
largest railway network in the world,
leaves much to be desired. Keeping in
mind the fact that there is a decreasing
state input in IR (from an envisaged allocation of Its 45,600 crore in the Eighth
Five Year Plan, actual allocation has slumped to Rs 27,202 crore), it is doubtful if the system will deliver the goods.
The IR has been acknowledged as
one of the most remarkable examples of
a successful state-owned financial enterprise worldwide. Yet, that glory fades in
the light of three disturbing developments. First, from a rail-dominant
economy in the '50s, India has decidedly become a road-dominant one
in the'90s.
Then, between the '50s and '90s, IR
shifted from being a freight-dominant
operation to a passenger-dominant one,
which means more freight movement
by trucks, causing more pollution.
Finally, the existing capacities of road
and rail systems appear to have become
saturated under the current technological and operational regimes.
Economic liberalisation is expected
to raise the annual growth rate of the
country's economy from 3.5 to four per
cent to 4.5 to six per cent. With the
implied industrial and trade growths,
experts expect a doubling of freight transport output every 10- 13 years, and
of passenger transport output every
eight to 16 years. They fear these developments might create unbearable pressure on the already overburdened railway system. And this might impede and
constrain the process of economic
growth itself. What, then, are the
maladies afflicting the IR?
Technological morbidity is the first.
"The 15-year long stagnation of the IR
between 1965 and 1980 was the result of
a faltering pace of modernisation initiated in the decades of its glory - the
'50s and '60s," notes a report by the
Planning Commission's Planning
Group on Technology Progression on
Railways, identifying this
as a key factor behind the
IR's declining standards.
"Many new technologies which were commissioned, stagnated for want
of upgradation. And what
little was done was
meal, without an interdisciplinary and systems
approach towards well-defined goals, and without
due coordination with
industry, to ensure compliance with requisite standards of quality control,"
the report says. Meanwhile, road transport technology sped past, and the era of
import restrictions botched self-sufficiency. As a result, the IR has been operating on a basic technology that was
imported way back in the '60s, with
recurrent but piecemeal upgradations.
"Given the life-span of 30-35 years
of the technology, the present decade is
the right time for comprehensive
modernisation and technology upgradation of the IR," opines A K Bhatnagar,
former chairperson of the Railway
Board, But the reducing state inputs
will fail to assist this massive scale of
modernisation in any manner.
The IR began electrifying its main
routes in the late '50s, but-progress was
slow and haphazard. As on March 31,
1994,11,793 route-kilometres (RKM, the
railway terminology for total length of
rail tracks laid), out of a total of 62,462
RKM, had been electrified. While feasibility studies were carried out initially,
no one monitored to see if the projected
benefits of electrification had actually
accrued at the time and levels assumed
in the studies.
The popular assumption was that
electrification being modern, it
deserved to be the center piece of modernisation of the railways. However, a
World Bank (WB) report, the first ever
such economic analysis
for two, electrified sections ot the IR, noted
some glaring discrepancies. "The internal rate of
return of the Jhansi-Itarsi
section dropped from the
originally projected 23
per cent to nine per cent,
and in the Balharshah-Vijaywada section, it
dropped from 41 per cent
to two per cent." The
study identified long
delays in project completion and slow and partial switch-over
from diesel to electric locos as the key
reasons. Neither the operational nor
labour-saving benefits are expected to
accrue because of the way the electric
trains are run.
Is electric traction a viable option?
Not all agree. In fact, there appears to be
some dissension within the ut, in the
economic and environmental sense,
regarding the entire project. Exclusive
material obtained from sources in the IR
suggests that most arguments in favour
of electric traction are untenable.
"It is a fallacy that electric traction is
technologically one step ahead of diesel
locos. It is time to think if further
investments in electric traction is financially viable,' states an official of the IR,
requesting anonymity. "We fear that
when the consumer is asked to foot this
enormous bill, by way of escalated fares,
he would opt for road travel. The argument that the national diesel consumption would reduce would be redundant."
"With regard to efficiency, running
and maintenance costs, service reliability, and energy efficiency, diesel locos
appear to hold advantage in the Indian
context," the official asserts. One major
argument is that there are substantial transmission losses in the whole process
of generating power in a thermal power
station and transmitting it to the
engines, which finally transforms it into
mechanical energy. This does not happen in the case of diesel locos, where the
power is generated internally.
D Santhanam, member (electrical),
Railway Board, fights off this critique:
"The statistics given against electric
traction are baseless. Electric traction is
more energy- efficient, has lesser over-
heads, and would improve the haulage
capacity." He says that countries such as
Sweden and Japan have gone in for 100
per cent electrification, a clear pointer
that the future of railways lies in electric
traction.
As a part of its endeavour to increase
haulage and passenger carrying capacities, the IR concluded a transfer of
technology package deal with Asea
Brown Boveri (ABB) of Sweden, which
includes the import of 33 state-of-the-
art air-conditioned three-phase 6,000
horsepower (hp) electric locos. Two
agreements have also been signed, the
first with General Motors, USA, for the
import of 21 diesel locos of 4,000 hp,
with a package of technology transfer
for indigenous manufacture by railways;
and another with Linka-Hoffrarnan
Busch of Germany for the import of 24
modern, light-weight coaches, along
with a package of technology transfer.
"The 6,000 hp ABB electric loco can
be used to pull a greater number of
coaches and freight wagons. While the
locos in use currently pull 18 coaches,
this loco will be used for pulling up' to 26
coaches, thereby increasing haulage
capacity," states Santhanam.
But there are sceptics within the IR and
outside, who are critical of the whole
logic of importation. They argue that it
may prove cheaper if the RDSO and other
public sector research units, such as the
Chittaranjan' Locomotive Works (CLW)
and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL),
were given specific mandates and adequate financial support to develop such
locomotives.
"The CLW has developed a 5,000 hp
electric loco which costs the exchequer
Rs 5 crore, as compared to the Rs 40
crore for each ABB loco. Had the government given them a definite mandate to
produce a 6,000 hp engine, they would
certainly have delivered," says an official
from the IR. "Moreover, by nipping our
research potential at the bud, we are
preventing the growth of indigenous
technology."
The Parliamentary Standing
Committee (PSC) on railways, in a
report released in the last week of
December '95, questioned the rationale
of a 10-year transition
period agreed upon for
the transfer of technology
from the ABB. "The
Committee was unable to
understand why a period
of 10 years is required to
reach a level of indigenisation of 75 per
cent of the imported components.
The IR is fully aware that the thyristor
technology proposed to be imported in
the late '80s became obsolete even during the trial period," the PCS report
noted. It suggested that the IR should try
to indigenise the loco in about five
years. It also expressed its disagreement
over the deal to import light-weight
coaches, instead of improving upon
indigenously available technology.
The IR has always paid scant
attention to in-house R&D. "As
against the IR's demand for Rs 150 crore
for the Eighth Plan, only a meagre
amount of Rs 25 crore (0.09 per cent
of the Plan outlay) has, been allocated
to the RDSQ. The ministry had spent
0.075 per cent, 0.073 per cent and
0.077 per cent of their gross earnings on
R&D during 1992-93, 1993-94 and
1994-95 respectively on in-house
R&D," stated the PSC report. Says Jain,
"The IR is not interested in getting
results from the RDSO. Only when the
RDSO is made an autonomous body,
with fixed targets and adequate financial
back-ups, will it be able to realise its true
capabilities."
With increase in traffic density,
state-of-the-art signalling
and telecom systems are
the need of the hour. The
IR claims to have focused
on upgrading the existing
signalling and telecom
systems to cope with the
rising traffic density in
some routes and to meet
better safety standards.
But an analysis of the
plan allocations reveals
I that out of an allocation of
Rs 6,200 crore in 1993-94,
the IR had set aside only Rs
161.25 crore for signalling
and safety - a mere
2.6 per cent of its total funds.
Some signalling and telecom
advances made by the RDSO are
currently undergoing trials. But the
main criticism against the IR is its
piecemeal and ad hoc approach. "This
field must get the maximum priority
to ensure passenger safety. But the IR
does not have a proper programme
as far as signalling is concerned,"
says S C Jain, an official with the
New Delhi-based Kalindee Rail
Nirman (Engineers) Ltd, a railway consultant firm.
Somnath Chatterjee, chairperson
of the PSC, had admitted in a seminar
in May 1995 that safety through
signals and telecom had not been
taken up specifically by the Committee
itself for the first two years of its
functioning. "We must have the
latest systems and gadgets of safety
for rail operations. Safety is not a
luxury, but a necessity that cannot be
compromised at all," he said.
In fact, the Railway Reforms
Committee had noted that at the
rate at which funds for track
circuiting were being allocated, it
would take the IR approximately
75 years to complete this vital
operation. "The decision for having
the Automatic Warning and Stop
system (AWS), Which had been given
top priority by the IR in the '60s, has
been reversed in favour of augmenting
speed of trains on important sections,"
noted the committee.
The construction of highways has
caused much heartburn among
ecologists and environmentalists in
the developed world. In India, the
railways' freight output expanded by
3.3 per cent annually between 1967 and
1987, while road, output expanded at
the rate of 8.8 per cent annually.
For passengers, rail output expanded at
the rate of 4.7 per cent annually, while
the road output grew by 9.8 per cent
annually.
In 1985, for the first time, the
road freight share of output (52 per
cent) exceeded that of railways (48 per
cent). Passenger shares, which were
about equal in 1961, had become 79 per
cent by road by 1985, thus making
India a road-dominant economy in
the '90s, according to the WB report.
The National Highways Authority
of India has mooted a proposal in
mid-'95 that may one day result in
seven super national highways. These would be 100 metre-wide corridors crisscrossing the country.
Such plans lend credence to the
theory that the country's planners
have all but reconciled to the fact
that -the future of the transport sector
primarily ties in roadways. This would,
once again, support the fact that
regardless of what the IR does, the
country is gearing up for increasing its
use of diesel.
An overwhelming n umber of
business houses prefer to transport
freight by road. Inefficient and
unreliable freight service of the are obviously the main causes
behind this, some insist. But
Bhatnagar disagrees.' "The railways
hold the major share in the transport
of bulk goods. The best thing to say
is that road and rail compliment
each other in freight transport," he
holds.
In spite of a general agreement
that railways is environmentally
the most beneficient mode of
transportation compared to airplanes
and vehicles on the road, there is no
coordination between the-ministry of
railways and the surface transport
ministry to evolve measures so as to
draw passengers and freight towards
railways.
Some serving officers of the IR suggest that rail corridors combing the
length and breadth of the country
should be established to cater to long
and medium-distance passenger and
freight traffic, while the intermediate
feeder areas (those, say, below 500 km)
could be catered to by the roads.
"Reform of the transport sector in India
is now imperative. Carrying out piecemeal and mutually exclusive reforms in
the different sections of the transport
sector may not be of any good," they
argue.
But the continued ad hocism in
planning and a lack of holistic approach
in policymaking, absence of vision
and concern for environmental
degradation and lack of emphasis on
indigenous research, are all symptomatic of a dangerous trend. If remedial
actions are not initiated, the entire
transport system within the country,
including its originally envisioned back-
bone, the railways, could derail. And
this would literally mean 'walking' into
the 21st century.
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