From safety to infrastructure: Rough track ahead for Indian Railways

On June 19, the brand new Vande Bharat train chugged into Platform 9 of the Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) railway station in Bengaluru at the end of its trial run from Dharwad. Next to the new train streamed a never-ending line of passengers, waiting to board the unreserved coaches of the Bengaluru-Belagavi Superfast Express.

A similar scene played out on Platform 1 at the other end of the station. As a result, the unreserved compartments of the KSR Bengaluru-CSMT Mumbai Udyan Express were soon jam-packed. Some of the crowd even filed into the sleeper compartments.

Even 2,000 km away, in New Delhi, space on trains remains in shortfall. Rahul Kumar Yadav, a garment salesman, for instance, reached the railway station two hours in advance and bought an unreserved ticket to Rajgir in Bihar.

With his mother unwell, Yadav was hoping for an uneventful journey home. His heart soon sank, when he caught a glimpse of the platform— it was brimming with passengers, though the Rajgir train (Shramjeevi Express) was yet to arrive. Baton-wielding Railway Protection Force personnel lined the passengers up.

All hell broke loose when the train did arrive.

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Passengers pushed each other to get into the unreserved compartments. Though Yadav was able to get into the train, he was unable to get a seat. Within minutes, all the unreserved coaches were filled.

“Some passengers occupied passages and even toilets. Others sat near toilets in the passageway of sleeper coaches,” he says.

These are everyday sights at railway stations in Delhi, especially on trains bound for Bihar and parts of UP. In Bengaluru, these sights are common on trains running to North Karnataka, especially Hubballi, Belagavi, Kalaburagi, Vijayapura and Bidar.

Reserved or unreserved, the Indian railways, considered the lifeline of India, continue to be bogged down by basic problems — dry water taps, unlit platforms, dysfunctional escalators, an erratic public address system, soiled seats, stinking toilets, tasteless food and trains that regularly run late.

As the railways embarks on a journey to build glitzy stations, runs swanky trains like the Vande Bharat and flags off bullet trains, it is time to assess the travel experience of the vast majority of its passengers. Are their journeys dignified, comfortable, and above all, safe?

Even after significant investments in the railways, common passengers’ travel experience has remained average at best. In tragic instances, their journeys can even turn out to be fatal like those onboard the Coromandel Express in Odisha’s Bahanga Bazaar early this month.

Overcrowding

The most obvious issue, according to passengers, is overcrowding. There is a mad rush for trains on high-density routes, particularly during weekends, major festivals and summer holidays. Despite running 1,500 special trains, the Indian railways is unable to meet this burgeoning demand.

For most passengers, getting a confirmed Tatkal ticket on a busy train is tougher than cracking the UPSC exam. The railways’ IT systems are so slow they can process only 25,000 bookings per minute.

As per the Economic Survey 2022-23, enhanced mobility across the country and demand for faster and competitive trains will help passenger traffic grow in the coming years.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who held a two-day Chintan Shivir with top officials a day before the Odisha train accident, said an action plan was in the works to increase annual passenger traffic to 11 billion from the current 8 billion. He also discussed a plan to eliminate waitlisted tickets.

Officials say the railways is working to increase the booking capacity to 2.25 lakh per minute by September.

With a total track length of 1,14,907 km, more than 21,648 trains carry over 22 million passengers per day.

Infrastructure

Then there are passenger and freight train delays, mainly due to infrastructural shortcomings of tracks that allow for slower speeds even if the train sets can run faster, such as the Vande Bharat.

Vaishnaw said the Chintan Shivir held discussions on how to bring half of the rail network (30,000 kilometres) to a sectional speed of 160-180 km per hour (kph).

"It is an undeniable fact that trains are overcrowded. Coaches are filled to four times their capacity. To increase carrying capacity, railways can run longer trains or design coaches that accommodate more passengers,” says Sudhanshu Mani, former general manager of the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai.

Mani, the creator of the famed Vande Bharat Express, also cautions against running more trains. This means reduced time for blocks (stopping train movements to perform maintenance), which may compromise safety.

Safety

The Indian railways does not have the best track record with safety. According to the National Crime Record Bureau’s 2022 report, more than 100,000 train-related deaths were reported between 2017 and 2021. These included collisions, people being run over by speeding trains and passengers falling from trains.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) painted a bleak picture of railways in its December 2022 report. It said 69% of railway accidents from 2018 to 2021 were caused due to derailments. The report also listed issues like track defects, incorrect loco-piloting, engineering and maintenance issues and operation errors as some of the main causes behind derailments.

Data from the railways suggests that while derailments are the most common form of rail accidents in India, these accidents have been declining in recent years. As per the Commission for Railway Safety’s report, railway accidents fell from 241 in 2012 to 35 in 2021.

"The Indian railways gives top priority to safety and has maintained a good record in the last few years. You will see there have been no major accidents for years," a railway spokesperson said. The number of accidents per million train kilometres fell from 0.10 in 2013 to 0.03 in 2022, the spokesperson added.

Staff shortages

However, by the railway minister’s own admission, the railways is looking at large-scale staff shortages. According to information presented in the Rajya Sabha in January 2023, 3.12 lakh non-gazetted railway posts were vacant in the country.

Among them, 14,815 vacancies were in the signal and telecommunications department and 62,264 in the traffic and transportation department.

The ministry says it has appointed 4.58 lakh employees in nine years and is recruiting 1.52 lakh more.

CPI Parliamentary Party Leader Binoy Vishwam, who raised the issue of railway vacancies in the Rajya Sabha many times, says, “The government focuses only on luxury trains while neglecting common people's trains and tracks."

There have been 28 reports on the railways since 1993, including the one prepared by Dr Anil Kakodkar in 2012. Most of them focused on safety issues and argued for early installation of anti-collision systems, including the indigenously developed Kavach system.

Officials in the railways say that 1,455 km of the South Central Railway rail network has been brought under the Kavach system. Contracts have been awarded for installing it on the 1,524-km New Delhi-Howrah and 1,425-km New Delhi-Mumbai routes. This apart, the railways has approved Kavach for another 30,000 km of high-density and highly utilised networks.

More needs to be done, according to Mahesh Mangal, a former additional member of the Railway Board. "Railways deployed Kavach on 4% of its network. A rapid rollout of Kavach would improve train safety and increase system capacity," he said.

The CAG flagged severe shortfalls in inspections, failures to submit or accept inquiry reports after accidents, non-utilisation of a dedicated railway fund for priority tasks, declining trends in funding for track renewal, and inadequate staffing in safety operations as serious concerns.

The 2022 report also highlights that funding for the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) had fallen by a massive 79%.

The RRSK was established for critical safety-related works. The railways spent over Rs 1 lakh crore on RRSK works between 2017-18 and 2021-22. It has spent Rs 1.78 lakh crore on safety since 2014, including Rs 1.09 lakh crore on track renewals alone, according to the railways.

A government source said: "The coverage of RRSK utilisation in the (CAG) report is limited to three years — 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 — which gives a partial picture of the actual expenditure on track renewal and safety-related works.”

The source added that a detailed reply to the issues raised in this report would be sent shortly.

For 2023-24, the railways has allocated Rs 2.4 lakh crore for railway capital investment, 50% more than the year before.

Mangal, who led the team that developed Kavach, said: "The railways should maintain a balance in spending money on all sections. Though modern coaches and modern stations are required, railways should also focus on safety and investment in safety-related works."

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport and Tourism, highlighted in its report in March this year, the inordinate delays in submitting action-taken reports (ATRs). It noted that 15 ATRs were still pending in the Railway Board, with the oldest accident dated in 2013-14 — a delay of more than eight years.

The committee felt that an inordinate delay in the submission of ATRs rendered the whole effort of accident investigations fruitless.

The railways prides itself on being the cheapest transport mode as it bears 53% of passenger service costs. In 2021-22, it spent Rs 60,217 crore on subsidised travel.

But does cheap public transport have to be unsafe, undignified and uncomfortable?

(With inputs from Pavan Kumar H in Hubballi)