(This article appeared in the Business Standard, 2002.)
The recent accident of Rajdhani express in Bihar, though reportedly as a result of an act of sabotage has once again placed a question mark on adequacy of safety inputs being organized by Railways. Of course the question of who is responsible will be eventually decided by the Commissioner of Railway Safety but translating ideas into action is perhaps the most crucial part of any administrative or management process.
On paper though Railways does it admirably well, in fact too well. How? It does so with a couple of thick volumes called the 'Pink Book', (since the cover page is invariably of Pink colour) that are placed on the floor of the house along with the Railway Budget.
The yearly plan for Railway's growth is spelt out in great financial detail and given its importance, replacement of the permanent way viz. track and repairs to bridges etc. forms an first of many chapters. Once the Rail Budget is passed, the 'Pink Book' becomes the bible authorizing expenditure on various heads of accounts.
If it is not in the 'Pink Book' it does not get done or made, - and conversely if it is there no one can take it out either since this is a document which has the approval of both the Lok and Rajya Sabha. Understandably it also has token amounts allotted against thousands of projects which on account of severe financial constraints the Railways has no means of completing in the next decade or so!
Herein lies the key to all problems facing this 1.7 million strong behemoth which has over the last one decade been burdened with Projects worth Rs. 35,000 crores which are still in the pipe line. The indomitable Jaffer Sharief followed by Suresh Kalmadi, Ram Vilas Paswan, Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar have all contributed their little bit in conceding populist demands from the legislators, inevitably resulting in the plethora of projects, forcing Rakesh Mohan to comment rather strongly in his report: 'From the view of investment strategy, the most undesirable feature of the annual budget exercise is the very short-term focus it imparts on all investment activities.'
He has further added, 'The priority of IR is to invest in the Golden Quadrilateral linking Delhi-Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai. Instead of de-bottlenecking, IR is being forced against its wishes to invest in initiatives that make matters worse, no better. About half of the capital fund has been absorbed in gauge conversion which has produced no discernible performance improvement.
New lines have absorbed 20 to 30% of borrowed Capital, only to increase IR's reach into areas where there is little or no traffic, at a time when un-remunerative lines should have been closed in order to free resources to liberate those arteries clogged with traffic.
Finally Rakesh Mohan has noted that 'The hard headed conclusion is that the Railway Works Programme (viz. the Pink Book) has lost focus over the last decade and is on the way of becoming an autonomous process with little connection with organized aims or resource limitations. The prevailing structure has served well in a captive market and planning needs associated with it. In a changing scenario brought about by the economic reforms, IR is now in a competitive environment where there is need to bring in customer orientation at the project framing stage itself.'
Soon after assuming the mantle of the Minister for Railways, Nitish Kumar was hailed as the first ever luminary to bring transparency in decision making, when in June '98 he placed on the floor of the Lok Sabha a 'White Paper' which laid bare the financial burden facing IR, listing all the Projects which featured in the 'Pink Book'.
The committee was however emphatic in its observation that ethnic, linguistic, territorial or such other considerations should not be taken into account while considering formation of new zones/divisions and reorganization of territorial jurisdiction of the existing ones. They also noted that such an exercise would involve considerable expenditure and every possible effort should be should be made to keep the number of additional zones/divisions to the bare minimum.
It was emphasized that the total burden of Rs. 35,000 crores would take no less than 35 years for them to be completed going by the current trend of yearly allocation. Of course these also included the 70 new lines mentioned by Rakesh Mohan in his report which if and when completed would remain un-remunerative for years to come!
While Nitish Kumar managed to avoid adding to the already long list of projects by observing a Works Programme holiday for a year he could not repeat the trick next year and succumbed to a host of populist demands from the legislators. A proposal for review of the long list of projects in the pipeline has also been kept in the cold storage since last 4 years, for Nitish or for that matter no Minister worth his salt would find it politically expedient to annoy his colleagues by jetissoning their pet projects.
However it required a person of the caliber of late Madhav Rao Scindia to do it, when he reviewed a long list of pending works and dropped about a couple of dozen of them, of course with Cabinet's approval. Perhaps the sponsoring legislators were promised some other goodies of equal if not better value to them, such as stopping a Super-fast express at a way side station, obviously a much cheaper option for the Railways!
Inadequate level of maintenance inputs on the British Rail privatized by Margaret Thatcher more than a decade ago has led to a number of serious train accidents, last one being at Potters Bar on 10th. May '02 claiming 7 lives and injuring about 70 passengers. The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) equivalent to our own CRS (Commissioner of Railway Safety) found no evidence of any sabotage.
Now in a major reversal of the privatisation policy 'Railtrack' will shortly become 'Network Rail', a non-profit body with a 500 million government backed buy-out. Reportedly Railtrack's debt of about 7.1 billion together with a 9 billion bridging loan from nine banks and a 4 million emergency back up fund will also be guaranteed by the government.
Back home a one time grant of Rs 15,000 crores recently announced by the PM to be spent over the next 5 years, including Rs. 3000 for repair and replacement of about 500 highly distressed old bridges may be too little too late!
However even now a total review of the 'Pink Book' by a group of Ministers, who would put their political stamp of approval on the list of projects prioritised by the Railway Board, could salvage the situation enabling Railways to go ahead with tasks which need to be done right away. In the process it would contribute to restoring the confidence level of the traveling public in Railway's capability of reaching them to their destination in one piece, preferably!