New waiting rooms and wifi at stations is fine but the focus must be on efficiently transporting passengers and eliminating irritants such as ticket touts. For this, capacity augmentation of high-density corridors is key
Improving passenger amenities in trains and at railway stations need not just be about building foot over-bridges, spanking new waiting rooms, food courts etc. Nor does it only mean providing online facilities for booking tickets, meals, retiring rooms or providing real time status of trains.
While the promise made by technology giant Google to bring Internet connectivity to 100 railway stations across the country by next year may be pleasing for computer geeks, quickly transporting passengers to their destination and eliminating irritants, such as ticket touts, are of equal importance.
For example, the New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express runs at a maximum speed of 150km per hour and at an average speed of 91km per hour on the 200km stretch between New Delhi and Agra. All other trains chug along at an average speed of 80km per hour.
This scenario may soon change when nine corridors viz, New Delhi-Chandigarh, New Delhi-Mumbai, Chennai-Bangalore-Mysore, Delhi-Kanpur, Nagpur-Bilaspur, Mumbai-Goa, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Hyderabad, and Nagpur- Secunderabad are upgraded and the speed of passenger trains raised to 160-200km per hour. However, the high-speed Delhi-Agra corridor, which was upgraded last year, is awaiting sanction from the Commission on Railway Safety.
Feasibility studies for other sections are underway. With France coming on board, the Delhi-Chandigarh corridor may soon be completed. The Chinese railway team is grappling with the tricky Chennai-Bangalore-Mysore corridor which runs across gradients and sharp curves.
Konkan Railway, which has been given the task to upgrade the Mumbai-Goa corridor, may be the first one to reach the goalpost. Tracks have been laid for this section. All this was possible due to a farsighted E Sreedharan, who was Chairman and Managing Director of Konkan Railways during the construction of the corridor.
Despite a large number of tunnels and bridges through the hilly terrain, tracks have been laid with one degree curves and gentle gradients. It has been a feat of civil engineering. The trial run for this section was done in 2003. While a speed of 130km per hour could be achieved right away, major upgrades in signalling etc, as per the norms of the Research Design and Standards Organisation, will be necessary to reach a speed of 160km per hour.
The present slow speed of passenger trains can be attributed to the populist measures of successive Railways Ministers. They agreed to additional halts for Rajdhanis and other super-fast trains, as demanded by MPs, MlAs, rail passenger associations and other assorted self-styled bodies who were out to establish their clout with the Minister.
Normally, such halts are sanctioned by the Minister on an experimental basis on two counts: First, to gain some quick popularity and, second, to assess the volume of traffic that is to be generated from the intermediate station. In due course, another review is done to decide if the halt should be made permanent or discontinued.
Unfortunately, such a review seldom takes place and the halt becomes permanent by default. Since 2004, a whopping 4,840 experimental halts have been sanctioned. All of them were supposed to lapse on September 30, 2014, but were continued when Mr DV Sadanand Gowda, the then Minister for Railways, developed cold feet.
Resultantly, over the years, the average train speed has plummeted. This has had an adverse impact on long distance passengers. In order to arrest this trend, incumbent Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu has proposed that stoppages be considered only on the basis of operational feasibility, commercial justifications, and genuine demands — not on the whims of local netas.
The activities of unscrupulous touts and travel agents, who book tickets in advance to corner seats during peak holiday seasons and cancel them in the last minute, have had their activities curbed by the newly introduced steep cancellation and other penalty charges. Taking a cue from aviation industry, the dynamic pricing model can also prove to be a game-changer. This will give passengers a better deal, and Indian Railways can also earn some additional moolah, which so far has been pocketed by middle-men.
Indian Railways’s slogan of safety, security and punctuality is still relevant. However, the almost 40 per cent increase in the number of passenger trains over the last two decades has made some rail sections resemble Delhi’s ITO bridge during rush hour. One delayed train can initiate a chain reaction and create a traffic snarl. Mr Prabhu’s thrust on capacity augmentation, with no less than 77 projects to significantly increase the capacity of high density corridors, is being executed on a war footing.
(The writer is a former Member, Railway Board)