With a price tag of Rs 1 lakh crore to be spent over the next five years, the High-Level Safety Review Committee — led by Anil Kakodkar, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission — has set a stiff target for Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi. After all, Indian Railways (IR) — India’s economic lifeline — is already starved of cash. Some parts of the long wish-list of hardware inputs, compiled after consultation with various directorates of IR, appear to be somewhat similar to what was recommended by the last safety review committee.
However, this time, the costs have ballooned — with quite a few major additions of expensive hardware being actively pushed for by various vendors.
Fortunately, implementing recommendations that involve empowerment at functional levels and a few administrative changes are not going to cost the moon. One such is increasing the financial powers of some of IR’s key players — the divisional railway manager, the general manager of zonal railways, the director-general of RDSO (Research Design and Standards Organisation), and so on.
Similarly, the committee has noted that the present practice of allowing a divisional railway manager (DRM) tenure of just two years dilutes accountability, and helps improve neither efficiency nor safety. They have strongly recommended reverting to the earlier system, in which tenure was not less than three years; officers of proven merit, preferably from the operating and technical services, should man these 68 crucial posts — the “field commanders” — which are spread all over IR’s 64,000 km network.
However, the committee — in their enthusiasm to ensure an accident-free system — have perhaps gone overboard by earmarking Rs 50,000 crore — half of their total bill — for the elimination of thousands of manned and unmanned level crossings. Though accidents at level crossings contribute only to 36 per cent of all railway accidents, they account for 59 per cent of deaths and often get wide publicity, hence the suggestion that level crossings be totally eliminated, whatever the cost. Creation of a SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) has been suggested to ensure speedy implementation of this mega project. Though the committee would like IR to bear the entire cost, its paucity of funds may force it to seek the government's help in picking up half the tab — since the loss of human life is often entirely due to gross negligence by road users while crossing the rail track, unmindful of approaching trains.
Rs 20,000 crore will be required for maintenance and safety-related items, and Rs 10,000 crore for manufacturing passenger coaches that are designed to reduce human casualties in the event of an accident. Rs 20,000 crore is earmarked for introduction of ATP (Automatic Train Protection), a track circuit-based cab signalling on the 19,000 kilometres of IR’s trunk routes. This is supposed to eliminate the chance of collisions and delays during cold, fog-bound winter mornings.
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Though heavy fog caused five major accidents last year in which many lives were lost, this winter locomotive drivers’ strict compliance with standing instructions to restrict speed to 15 kilometres an hour caused a collapse of punctuality — but successfully eliminated all such incidents!
Fifty per cent of all train accidents during the last five years have been on account of derailments, of which nearly 30 per cent have been because of track defects, including fractured rails. The need to upgrade tracks from the present 52 kilogrammes/metre to 60 kg/m head-hardened rails, with matching upgraded PSC (pre-stressed concrete) sleepers, is proposed by the committee for all new lines as well as replacements. It is a price IR will have to pay for Lalu Yadav’s folly of hiking the loading capacity of wagons by almost 25 per cent a decade ago!
Realising that 42 per cent of all accidents in the last five years were attributed to staff failures, major upgrades have been proposed for scores of training institutes — which churn out station masters, locomotive drivers, and maintenance staff by the hundreds every year. In addition, it is proposed that RDSO be totally revamped, so that it contributes effectively to technology upgradation by engaging specialists in various fields — instead, as is the case at present, of relying entirely on in-house abilities.
At the same time a new outfit, the Railway Research and Development Council, is proposed. The idea is that it will be headed by an eminent scientist or technology practitioner, have an Advanced Railway Research Institute under it, along with five Railway Research Centres, and it will oversee key safety-related railway disciplines — rolling stock, signalling, telecommunications, tracks and bridges, and operations management.
After a comparison with other major railway networks, the committee has recommended a Railway Safety Authority independent of the Railway Board as an effective “watch dog and a regulator”. That is, the committee argues, essential to any improvement in IR’s safety record. The Authority is to monitor the implementation of various safety directives — which is a rather tall order! This, already being called a “Super” Board, will have its own chairman and three external members who will be “eminent technologists”.
Such an authority could prove to be a game-changer if, and only if, the IR slots — a member for traffic, a member for safety and research, and the chief commissioner of railway safety (CCRS) as member-secretary — are manned with dedicated officers who are highly competent in their respective fields and have a proven track record. And if they are, in addition, determined to get to the root causes of train mishaps covering equipment, human and system failures. Allowing this new regulator to descend into being a another group of file-pushers who are intent only on finding fault without appreciating the ground realities would hardly make railways any safer.
Undoubtedly, conflict between the Railway Board, which will continue to discharge its executive role, and the Safety Authority is bound to arise — and the railway minister will have to play the role of an umpire, red-carding the players whereever necessary.
All in all, this is an extensive and ambitious road map — with quite a steep price tag — for the railways to follow in order to usher in an era of safer rail travel. Only time will tell as to how much of the road the 1.4 million-strong behemoth will be able to cover, and how quickly.
The writer is a former member of the Railway Board; acharya@bol.net.in