Indian Railways: The unfolding transformation

There are encouraging signs of this behemoth aggressively pursuing a refresh and rejuvenate agenda

The sheer size of Indian Railways, whether in terms of length of lines covered (67,000 km of track), the volume of freight carried (1.1 billion tonne), the number of passengers (8 billion), or even just the total number of employees (1.3 million) is enough to daunt the toughest of reformers. Add the burden of legacy issues and the lack of clarity between social, commercial and developmental objectives, and you have one of the largest institutional challenges anywhere in the world; a challenge that shows up in the persistent annual struggle to achieve a healthy operating ratio.

But it does appear