Under the Narendra Modi government, the Indian Railways is getting the focus it deserves to make it stand at par with global peers. This push, however, needs to continue for at least another decade.
Michael Portillo, the British journalist, who has covered Railways across the world in his television shows once remarked – “British-built railways in India helped the British to make money and maintain order and, as a by-product, served to unite the country, ripe for independence.” Successive Indian governments could only find incremental meaning in Indian Railways after the British left. What now is the fourth largest Railways network in the world was largely used for narrow and short-term political gains by most Railways ministers.
One hundred and sixty years after the Indian Railways first ran a passenger train between Mumbai and Thane, the Narendra Modi government inherited a great legacy but also a litany of stubborn problems, which only grew in complexity with every passing year. From bureaucracy to lack of investments, from burgeoning costs to poor passenger facilities, and from stagnating technology to accidents and safety concerns, Indian Railways kept flying into perfect storms every year.
Suresh Prabhu set the first foundations of changes in the Railways. His immediate focus was on customer experience. Prabhu initiated leveraging the power of social media to solve problems of commuters. He also set in motion the plan for raising monetary resources through initiatives like station redevelopment. This momentum has not just been carried forward by Piyush Goyal, the current Railways Minister, but also accelerated rapidly, since he took up the role in September 2017.
Improved Safety Record of Indian Railways
The year 2019 was the safest year in the history of the transporter, with no passenger deaths recorded on account of accidents involving the Railways itself. The financial year 2018-19 had seen 29 deaths, which was an 81 per cent drop from the fatalities witnessed in 2013-14 after which the Modi government took over.
The Rashtriya Rail Sanrakshna Kosh (RRSK), Rs. 1 lakh crore fund dedicated to the safety of Railways, has been bearing dividends. The Railways has methodically chipped at the root cause of accidents in the last few years. There has been a big push to construct foot over bridges and high platforms. There was similar focus on the construction of rail overbridges, underpasses and subways to separate foot and road traffic from the rail lines.
The Railways also renewed rails at a faster speed than ever last year with over 5000 kilometres of old rail replaced. The production of the old Integral Coach Factory (ICF) coaches was stopped completely – the design of these coaches led to higher fatalities in accidents compared to the design used in more modern coaches. Another remarkable safety achievement for the Railways was the complete elimination of all unmanned level crossings on the broad-gauge network.
Bureaucratic Reorganisation
The government has recently approved an organisational restructuring of the Indian Railways, including the Railway Board, the apex body of the organisation. These organisational changes have been talked about for a while. Committees led by Prakash Tandon (1994), Rakesh Mohan (2001), Sam Pitroda (2012), and most recently, Bibek Debroy (2015), had made recommendations to this effect. This ‘corporatization’, where silos are broken to create the right mix of generalist and specialists, changes the very nature of Railways’ administration. These changes, the biggest ever since the British created the Railway bureaucracy, will lead to faster decision making as each project will have single-point ownership. Faster implementation of projects will eventually lead to cost savings.
The Railways has also been retiring some officers in public interest on grounds of inefficiency, doubtful integrity and conduct unbecoming of a railway servant as part of a periodic review. There were four such retirements in 2016-17 and 32 in December 2019.
Earlier in September 2019, the government transferred 50 out of the 200 Directors working in the Railway Board to various zones to augment field staff capacity. A leaner decision-making body in Delhi is a long-pending change effected in the last few months.
Capital Expenditure
There has been a twofold increase in the capital expenditure (capex) made by the Indian Railways between 2014-2019 over 2009-2014, the preceding five years. The capex in 2014-19 has been Rs. 5.1 lakh crores, as opposed to Rs. 2.3 lakh crores in the preceding five years. The year 2019-20 will see a single year capex of more than Rs. 1.5 lakh crore, which will be the highest ever for the Railways.
This is significant as Railways has been a key driver of government expenditure, which in turn has been a key driver of otherwise muted economic growth last few quarters. Such spend resulted in national engineering assets like the iconic Bogibeel Bridge, which connects Arunachal Pradesh to the rest of the country. The bridge was sanctioned in 1997-98 but completed only twenty years later.
Targeted investments have also helped increase the value of past dud investments made by the Railways. The Modern Coach Factory in Rae Bareli was commissioned amidst great fanfare in 2010 to produce a thousand coaches per year. For years, it did nothing except giving finishing touches to coaches brought from the Kapurthala factory. Now the Rae Bareli factory capacity has been increased to almost three thousand coaches per year and it is now producing coaches.
Between 2020 and 2025, the capex made by Indian Railways will form a key component of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), unveiled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in December 2019. 14 per cent of the NIP spend will be on Indian Railways, the third-highest sectoral allocation.
Private Player Engagement
Privatisation of Railways is a contentious topic. Any talk of engagement of private players leads to massive resistance from the powerful unions and labour lobbies. Separating the content from the carriage – unbundling services from the underlying infrastructure – has been the Modi government’s preferred way to encourage private participation in Railways, without stirring debates on ownership.
For the first time ever, a ‘private’ train Tejas Express was launched between Lucknow and Delhi, followed by another route addition in Ahmedabad to Mumbai. While as of now, these trains are operated by IRCTC – an Indian Railways group company, the ambition is to launch 150 private trains across India.
Earlier, the Railways had encouraged private participation in areas like food delivery, creating a big choice of food delivery options at stations or in trains. Integrating services of private cab services at various stations has been another big initiative to facilitate last-mile connectivity for the travellers.
Station Redevelopment
To raise off-budget resources and to monetise the assets of Indian Railways, a station redevelopment plan was put in place in 2015. Railways put in place a plan to redevelop 50 stations on lines of airport privatization. The program got off to start with the Habibganj (Bhopal) and Gandhinagar stations the first to be bid. The refurbished stations are likely to be thrown open to the public over 2020.
The contracts for five other station redevelopment projects of Gomti Nagar (Lucknow), Charbagh (Lucknow), Puducherry, Tirupati and Chandigarh has been awarded. Additionally, the Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited (IRSDC), the nodal agency for station redevelopment projects, has invited bids for the redevelopment of four railway stations- Nagpur, Gwalior, Amritsar and Sabarmati.
Beautification of more than 65 railway stations has been completed, depicting local art. A renewed focus has been put on installing escalators and passenger lifts on many stations.
Electrification Initiatives
Electrification of the Railways network has been a key priority for the Modi government. The government plans 100 per cent electrification of all broad-gauge routes by 2022. This electrification can save India more than Rs. 13,000 crores in fuel bill by completing the move from diesel to electricity.
As this happens, new engineering initiatives are also being undertaken. The Diesel Locomotive Works factory in Varanasi performed the world’s first-ever conversion of diesel locomotive to an electric locomotive.
Alstom produced a WAG-12 locomotive, referring to the 12,000-horsepower locomotive from its Madhepura factory in April 2018. Conceptualised in the mid-2000s, the project was approved by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) in February 2007. After many years of dilly-dallying on whether the government should run this project itself or a joint venture (JV) with a private player should be constituted, the Modi government went the JV route in November 2015 with Alstom. The Madhepura Electric Locomotive Factory is a Euro 3.5 billion project. It is one of the largest foreign direct investments in India.
Targeted Revenue Generation via Tourism
The Railways is taking the lead to become more tourism-focused. This is a source of revenue as well as a source to promote new infrastructure.
The Ramayana Express traces the path of Lord Ram during his 14-year exile in India and Sri Lanka. The trains were launched from three different destinations – Rajkot, Jaipur and Madurai – to ensure that travellers from across the country get to experience the modern pilgrimage.
The Buddhist circuit train covers Bodhgaya, Nalanda and Varanasi in its eight-day journey. This train attracts tourists not just from India but also countries like China, Japan, and Sri Lanka.
The Panj Takht Express is meant for Sikh pilgrims visiting the five most religiously significant gurudwaras in the country – Sri Akal Takht at Amritsar, Takht Keshgarh Sahib at Sri Anandpur Sahib, Takht Sri Damdama Sahib at Bhatinda, Takht Sri Patna Sahib at Patna, and Takht Sri Hazur Sahib at Nanded. The 10-day special package includes meals, stay, sightseeing and transfers.
The Railways has also launched special vista dome coach trains for travellers to appreciate natural beauty on key routes. These coaches, which have see-through glass roofs, have been deployed on routes like Vishakhapatnam – Araku Valley, Dadar (Mumbai) – Madgaon (Goa) and Shimla–Kalka.
Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC)
India recently celebrated the fourteenth foundation day of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), the company which has been working on the two DFCs – west and east. During this time, the DFCCIL has completed five-hundred of the one-thousand kilometres track length of the two DFCs.
The 194-kilometre long Bhadan to Khurja section of the Eastern DFC has been completed and commercial trials have started on this corridor. Similarly, the 305 km long Rewari to Madar section of the Western DFC has been completed with commercial trial runs starting. The DFCCIL has also acquired almost all land required for the two projects. Owing to the speedy work in the last couple of years, it now appears that the two corridors will be fully operational in 2021 – good fifteen years after the first steps were taken.
The Railways is also planning three more DFCs which will entail an investment of Rs. 2.6 lakh crores over the next ten years.
Train and Amenities Modernization
One key area of focus has been putting modern trains in service. The Gatiman Express was the first semi high-speed train launched in 2016, which now runs between Delhi and Jhansi. The train covers the Delhi-Agra section in about a hundred minutes.
Indigenous design, development and production of Train 18 – now the Vande Bharat Express – was a big achievement for the Railways. The ICF in Chennai worked on the development of this modern train, which has two services now between Delhi and Varanasi and Delhi and Katra. The scale-up plan includes launching 44 new such trains in the coming years.
The Mumbai to Ahmedabad bullet train project, being executed with the help of the Japanese agencies, is also beginning to gather pace. It may not meet its originally planned deadline of 2023-end completion going by the current activity levels. Nonetheless, the project will set the right benchmark for the high-speed rail expansion in India.
Using Railways to solve mass urban rapid transport problems of Mumbai and Bengaluru will be a priority in the next five years. Navi Mumbai suburbs have already seen better connectivity with the larger Mumbai local network. Projects worth Rs. 70,000 crores are currently underway to improve the Mumbai local network. Similarly, an investment of Rs. 16,000 crores is planned for the Bengaluru local network, connecting busy areas of the city.
Digital Initiatives
Integration of technology to improve efficiency, transparency and agility in the functioning of the government departments has been a key theme pursued by Piyush Goyal since 2014. After ‘consumerization’ of the power sector, he adopted the same approach for the Railways too.
The Rail Drishti portal, which is now accessible publicly, is a one-stop-shop for interacting with the Railways. From tenders to public complaints to rail tracking to accounts payable – several areas of Railways’ working have been exposed digitally.
At its peak, the Google Play Store had over 250 apps pertaining to various Railways’ services, with 50 coming from the government agencies and the rest by private players. These apps let users enquire train status, look at the timetable, make reservations, book unreserved tickets, order food on trains, complain about cleanliness and other services and provide feedback to the Railways.
More than 5,500 stations now have free wi-fi services. Google has partnered with the Railways to provide services at several stations. Railways are equipping its officials with the point of sale machines to enable real-time allotment of vacant seats to wait-listed passengers.
For the first time since Independence, the Indian Railways is addressing the root causes of its lack of attaining global standards, despite being an early player. The Narendra Modi government is looking at the business model, the user experience as well as the backend operations and logistics of the transportation behemoth to bring about institutionalized changes to the Indian Railways.
This bold and ambitious approach needs to continue for the next decade or so to ensure that the Indian Railways not just catches up with the expectations of Indian commuters but also with its global peers.
Aashish Chandorkar writes on public policy, politics, and current affairs. He is based in Pune. He tweets at @c_aashish.
Source: https://indiainfrahub.com/2020/railways/goyal-going-full-steam-with-railways/
Large organisations are rarely restructured. If they are government or public-owned, restructuring is even rarer. The magnitude of the recent revamp of Indian Railways (IR) needs to be appreciated in this context. It is effectively an attempt to overhaul a government institution that is more than 1.3 million peoplestrong and 160-plus years old. So, why is such a mega restructuring being attempted? How will this benefit the railways and its stakeholders?
The Railway Board is IR’s apex decision-making body. It is organised into various departments like mechanical, electrical, traffic and finance that are vertically separated from the top to bottom. A member of the board, usually a secretary rank officer, heads each department. The management and administrative arm of the organisation is staffed by officers belonging to eight Group A services of IR that include Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS), Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE), Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), etc.
Officers from a particular service are likely to grow within their respective departments, exceptions being some general roles such as divisional railway manager (DRM), and general manager (GM).
These lines of separation made IR a complex over-departmentalised organisation with inefficient decision-making. Several expert committees in the past flagged their serious concerns on this matter including, most recently, the one headed by one of us, the Bibek Debroy Committee.
It highlighted the gravity of the problem, ‘[Departmentalism] manifests itself in the form of unhealthy competition among departments for appropriating a larger share of scarce resources; injurious competition for usurping a larger share of key general management posts for better access to power, authority etc; a clamour for pursuing narrow departmental goals at the cost of organisational goals and objectives; and a lack of team work and cohesion.’
GoI has set a vision of making railways a 100% safe, fast and reliable mode of transport for passengers and freight. The plan is to modernise the entire network by investing around Rs 50 lakh crore by 2030. But if IR continues to work as it does now — in narrow departmental silos — GoI will never be able to achieve this vision.
IR restructuring has two major components. The first involves unification of existing Group A services into a single service: the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS). The second involves reorganising the Railway Board itself. This includes, one, organising the board along functional lines (infrastructure, operations and business development, rolling stock, and finance) with each function headed by a member. The chairman would continue to head the board, but may be redesignated as CEO.
Two, making the board leaner with the number of members reduced to four, heading the above-mentioned functions.
Three, flexibility to induct professionals with leadership experience in technical domains as independent board members. The merger of services will help IR transform itself into a unified entity capable of working efficiently as one team towards common goals. On the other hand, reorganisation of the board will orient IR’s decision-making set-up to market realities, and will infuse fresh thinking, thereby making IR more creative in responding to future business challenges.
That said, although the exact modalities of unification of services are still being worked out, GoI has already stated that due care will be taken to ensure that career progression, seniority, promotion and the technical/non-technical work focus of existing officers is not compromised.
IR leadership has already started engaging with existing railway officers and other stakeholders in this regard. In fact, even before considering these initiatives, wide consensus and support from officers across the railway services as well as their federations were obtained.
Effectively, these decisions are a bold attempt to overhaul the work culture of IR and align it to market forces. At this point of time, IR stands at a juncture where a series of earlier reforms have started showing initial results. The pace of capacity augmentation works such as doubling, tripling, electrification etc, has gone up significantly.
The entire broad gauge network is free of unmanned level crossings. Rolling stock, and signal and telegraph (S&T) technology are being modernised. With zero deaths, this financial year has been the safest in IR’s history. As IR embarks on its journey into the next decade, a restructured organisation should make it simple, agile and efficient, thereby giving it all the necessary tools and flexibilities to achieve ‘vision 2030’.
Debroy is chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), and Desai is former officer on special duty, EAC-PM
Last Saturday, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government completed six months in office in its second term. Within this six months several historic and transformative decisions have been taken by Modi 2.0 touching positively, in particular, the lives of poor, downtrodden, farmers, women, youth, middle class, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes
The overarching principle and spirit of all decisions by the Modi government has been “India First”. In line with the mandate and faith re-imposed emphatically by the people of India, the government under Modi’s dynamic leadership has engaged in realising and fulfilling the promises made by the BJP in its election manifesto.
With the larger vision of “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas”, Modi 2.0 is steadfastly working and seeking “Sabka Vishwas”.
Several core promises of the BJP have already been fulfilled. One Nation, One Flag, One Constitution became a reality under the Modi government.
It was a historic moment when the bill to abrogate Article 370, piloted by BJP president and Union home minister Amit Shah, was passed by Parliament. The passage of the triple talaq bill has delivered gender justice to Muslim women.
The six months’ tenure of Modi 2.0 in the country also saw the historic verdict of the Supreme Court on Ayodhya, paving the way for the construction of a magnificent Ram temple on “Ram Janmabhoomi”.
Significantly, some of the key political opponents did everything to delay the judgement on Ayodhya. However, as mentioned by Modi in his “Mann Ki Baat” programme, the spirit of peace and harmony that prevailed post-Ayodhya verdict was a testimony to the strength of Indian democracy.
India is on the right path to become a 5 trillion dollar economy soon. With major decisions like strategic disinvestment of PSUs and reforms like tax, labour and banking, the Indian economy is strengthening.
Corporate tax rates have been slashed to 22% for existing and 15% for new domestic manufacturing companies. India now has one of the lowest tax rates, making it one of the most competitive global economies.
Today, the world looks up to India for providing solutions to global issues like climate change and sustainable development and we are no more back benchers.
During the recent Climate Action Summit in New York, the world was taken by surprise when Modi announced that India is going to increase energy produced from non-fossil fuels to 175 GW by 2022, and will further take it to 450 GW. At the same summit the PM also launched a Global Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.
On the domestic front we have transferred Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds to the tune of Rs 47,436 crore, to 26 states and Union territories for afforestation. We have ensured that tribal rights are protected fully and tribals continue to be important stakeholders in forest development.
Government is taking all efforts for the mitigation of air pollution in the country. The central government has launched National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) as a long-term, time-bound, national level strategy with targets to achieve 20% to 30% reduction in PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations by 2024.
The Modi government is determined to take all steps to fight the menace of air pollution and I can assure you that New Delhi will take less time than Beijing to improve its air quality.
Flying clean and high, the Modi government has brought Rafale to India. With this, the litany of false allegations against the government has fallen apart.
Strengthening its outreach to the far-flung areas, the Union government is in the process of setting up of 118 more community radio stations. The Indian Institute of Mass Communication has been tasked with training and capacity building for the same.
In order to enhance the accessibility of television programmes for the hearing impaired, we have asked for the implementation of Accessibility Standard for TV programmes.
Countering fake news has been high on the government’s agenda. We are setting up a fact checking unit in order to identify and effectively counter fake news narratives related to government and its policies.
Modi believes in public participation by which behaviour can be changed. He had proved this through Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and building toilets.
Now he has given a clarion call for “Say No to Single Use Plastic”. During just 15 days’ campaign, 13,000 tonnes of plastic waste were collected.
He has also appealed to people to do “plogging”, that is, while jogging or walking, picking and properly disposing of polythene littered on the streets or pathways.
Though six months are a very short period, when we look back, a phenomenal achievement has been made by Modi government 2.0.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/a-phenomenal-six-months-modi-government-has-hit-the-ground-running-as-it-starts-its-second-term/
Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Railways
26 NOV 2019 3:09PM by PIB Delhi
5400+ stations with Wi-Fi will help in making Railway stations hubs of digital transformation: Shri Piyush Goyal on 20th Foundation day of Indian Railways’ PSU RailTel
Indian Railways’ PSU RailTel celebrated its 20th Foundation day on 25th November 2019 in New Delhi. Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal was the chief guest of the event. Minister of State of Railways, Shri Suresh C. Angadi graced the occasion as the Guest of Honour. Chairman, Railway Board, Shri Vinod Kumar Yadav and Member Signal & Telecom, Railway Board, Shri Pradeep Kumar, other Railway Board Members and Senior officials from Railways, DoT, Railway PSUs, and senior officials of the Telecom sector were also present on the occasion.
Speaking on the occasion through video conferencing, Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal congratulated RailTel for its glorious journey. Shri Goyal said that RailTel is truly a millennial PSU with a short history behind and a long future ahead. RailTel has done a remarkable job by bringing Wi-Fi to every nook and corner of the country through Wi-Fi service on 5400+ railway stations. Now that the RailTel is coming of age, it needs to aim for greater heights and become a Rs. 10000 cr. company in the coming years.
Praising the station Wi-Fi project of RailTel, Shri Goyal said that the 5400+ station Wi-Fi will help in making Railway stations hubs of digital transformation. 1.5 cr people are using RailTel Wi-Fi in a month. Shri Goyal also shared some heartwarming stories of Station Wi-Fi helping people in achieving their dream. Shri Goyal shared a story of a porter in Kerala who used this Wi-Fi facility to study and clear Kerala Service Commission exam and Soni Sahu, a farmer, who is learning new techniques of farming using station Wi-Fi to increase productivity,
Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State of Railways, Shri Suresh C. Angadi said that RailTel started as a Rs. 15 crore company and now it is a Rs. 1000+ crore company. Shri Angadi congratulated RailTel for connecting 5400+ stations to Wi-Fi in such a short time. Shri Angadi also advised CMD, RailTel to expeditiously connect gram panchayats under Bharatnet to bring Wi-Fi to the rural population.
In his welcome address, CMD/RailTel, Shri Puneet Chawla elaborated on the achievements made by RailTel in the past years. Shri Chawla stressed on the fact that RailTel is one of the very few consistently profit-making, dividend paying, debt free telecom PSUs despite tough competition in the market. In the last financial year RailTel achieved 1017 crore turnover, with an operating margin of Rs. 184 crores.
Shri Chawla spoke about some of the ongoing and new projects of RailTel, like station Wi Fi project, Railwire Saathi, NIC e-office, Video Surveillance system, Modern Train Control system etc. Shri Chawla also announced that RailTel has successfully started executing Railwire Saathi project to carryout assisted internet usage and to develop rural entrepreneurs–who will man Railwire Saathi kiosks at stations to extend various online e-governance services of Government of India to rural population. The Kiosks will be set up at 200 stations as a pilot project.
The programme concluded with the award presentation ceremony felicitating the outstanding achievers (individual and team) of RailTel.
Source: https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1593551
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