The test of numbers

Everyone loves a fast train. And if the bullet train has done much to connect Japan and also yield powerful images of a country on the move, there might be reason for India to think of doing the same. Besides which, if the distance between Mumbai and Pune (one of the three routes proposed for bullet trains) can be completed in a little over an hour, as opposed to about three hours on the new expressway, it would do wonders for both cities. As long as capital is free, there is no reason why such vistas should not be opened up. But since capital is never free, and the same money can always be spent elsewhere, any proposed investment must survive a hard look at the numbers.

In other words, there is the question of viability. At a time when the railways are confronted with the threat of low-cost airlines, it is difficult to see the justification for a project that seems to increase the cost of travelling by rail, and quite dramatically at that. If the Mumbai-Pune stretch is to cost at least Rs 32,000 crore in terms of investment, then at 8 per cent (the cost of 10-year money for the government), the annual interest cost alone is Rs 2,560 crore. Add 5 per cent depreciation (assuming a 20-year life for the assets created) and the capital cost increases by Rs 1,600 crore to Rs 4,160 crore. Even if there is one train each way every hour, for 15 hours a day, carrying 400 people per train, 350 days in the year, the total number of passengers served will be only 4.2 million""and these are optimistic traffic assumptions. Since the railways are unlikely to charge more than the air fare for the same distance (about Rs 2,000), the total revenue will be about Rs 840 crore""or a fifth of just the capital cost, with all operating costs still to be considered. Even if you assume that capital is free, the alternatives have to be considered. Does it make sense for the railways to spend Rs 32,000 crore of taxpayers' money to decongest Mumbai if Mukesh Ambani is going to be spending another Rs 25,000 crore to do the same by building a new city across from the harbour?

In many ways, the fascination with bullet trains is akin to that with the metro. While the metro was once seen as the solution to the problems of cities like Delhi, the Delhi Metro's current ridership is less than a fourth of the original projections (which meant virtually no one would travel by DTC buses any more!). Besides, as Professor Dinesh Mohan of IIT-Delhi has been arguing for a long time, a Bus Rapid Transit System costs a fraction of this and can carry as many passengers, given the greater coverage of a bus system. In other words, the railways should be looking for a BRTS kind of option for fast inter-city traffic. All that this would entail is improvement in signalling and overall system management (like more uniform speeds for trains), and modern rolling stock, so that passengers can travel in greater comfort and speed, on the same track. If a Mumbai-Pune train can travel at Rajdhani speeds and cover the distance in two hours, at a fraction of the cost of a bullet train, then no one will be complaining.