Why the passenger matters

Difficulties over Diwali weekend remind us of the role the Railways plays in our development

For those of us lulled into false optimism by videos of the swanky Vande Bharat trains, or by seamless and comfortable journeys on inter-city Shatabdis, the videos that emerged over the past fortnight of people trying to get home by train for the festival season were a bit of a shock. We have known for some time that the Indian state routinely underprovides for migrant labour. That message, certainly, was brought home to us during the pandemic when thousands of people set out to walk home during lockdowns. But, even so, images of people struggling to get into overcrowded compartments, faced with the possibility of a nightmarish journey lasting dozens of hours with nowhere to sleep, were something of a shock to the system.

What went wrong? Obviously, this was not a normal time: It was, after all, Diwali, and the past weekend was also Chhath Puja, when many from Bihar in particular make the journey home. The Railways themselves sounded vaguely surprised: They insisted that they had provided for an extra 2.4 million passengers over the Diwali weekend, and run 1,700 special trains.

Let us take them at their word. Even if extra provisions were made, they were clearly insufficient or mistargeted. For example, it is possible the trains commissioned did not run to the places that they should have and from the stations where there was excess demand. At the very least, these numbers from the Railways authorities are themselves so enormous that they themselves hint at the size of the problem. India’s railway system is something of a miracle, and one which we take for granted. But even the long-distance network is stretched at the seams on a normal day. When demand is exceptionally high, then clearly arranging for extra capacity is close to impossible.

The current government cannot be faulted when it comes to recognising the importance of investment into the Railways. In the last iteration of the Union Budget, presented earlier this year, the Union Finance Minister ensured that the public funds allotted to capital expenditure saw a significant increase for the third successive time. According to the Budget speech, a full Rs 10 trillion was earmarked for capital spending. About half that amount was meant for the transport sector; and just over half of that — Rs 2.6 trillion or so — was for Indian Railways. This is not a small amount, nor is it a small proportion of the Budget. Much of the spending is going to go on important behind-the-scenes activity: Rs 30,000 crore for track doubling, which might ensure that the Railways’ on-time performance is significantly improved. A similar amount is to be set aside for new tracks, and even more — Rs 40,000 crore — for rolling stock.

Given that the government’s commitment to investment cannot thus be faulted, we must search elsewhere for the problem. Either this money is not being directed properly, or it is being allotted and not being spent. Some basic questions will need to be asked of the Railways if accountability for these vast sums is to be ensured. 

But that accountability can come only if some deeper questions are asked and understood. One such question, surely, is what the government sees as the purpose of the Railways. Who should this network serve? On the one hand, passenger fares are deliberately kept low to minimise political blowback. Freight services — so vital for the industrial network and indeed for reducing reliance on carbon-intensive trucking — are used to cross-subsidise passenger travel.

But while passenger travel is seen as needing to be cheap, passenger comfort is not as high a priority. Many improvements have certainly been made, to meal quality on certain stretches, for example. But, by and large, the passenger experience — particularly for those travelling in the general unreserved category — remains very much as it was decades ago. The only improvement, perhaps, is something that the Railways cannot take credit for: The tedium of a rail journey in the pre-4G era has vanished forever. Granted, that experience has been replaced with the constant irritation of people streaming videos without headphones, but it is still an improvement.

India’s failure to make long-distance travel convenient and attractive for those at the lower end of the income spectrum reflects a fundamental gap in how we approach our development narrative. The fact is that, like anywhere else in the world, Indian economic growth will require large-scale internal migration. People will move from population centres where there is under-investment to those which have better connectivity to supply chains and thus higher labour productivity and wages. The mills of the first industrial nation, Great Britain, were manned by agricultural workers moving to the industrial belts of north-west and north-east England; and the global manufacturing dominance of the latest and greatest industrial nation, China, was accompanied and powered by the product of enormous migration from its interior to its coast. The equivalent process in India should be normalised and supported. Making it easier to be a migrant for labour should be a major priority for government policy. Part of that is to ensure that, when they need or want to get home, there should be a train for them to take. That is one of the major roles that Indian Railways must play in our growth story, and it should not be under-emphasised.

There are other aspects to the migrant experience that need attention. The question of housing, for example. We are narrowly focused on building one-family houses, and in the location where people’s households are registered. Should not we also consider the needs of single workers, who are temporarily away from the place where they have their family? Or do we expect them to continue to live six to eight to a room — or expect that housing them will always be their employers’ duty? Are we ensuring that peoples’ benefits, their state entitlements, and their franchise, are easily movable across jurisdictions so migrants will not feel cut off from their identity and existence as an Indian citizen once they leave their home district or state? 

Once we reframe the Indian development project to centre the people whose lives must change if we are to succeed, we will naturally recognise the importance of their lived experience. And, then, perhaps, going home for a holiday will not be a 

harrowing experience.

 

The writer is director, Centre for the Economy and Growth, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi