Indian Railways is Doing A Difficult Job

Railways is coping with increasing demand for movement, resulting from expansion of central business district into south Mumbai that forces many to travel from the north

The stampede on a foot overbridge at Elphinstone station — that led to the loss of 22 lives and injured over 30 — is a tragedy that was waiting to happen. This is primarily because the suburban system, like everything else for the Indian Railways, is overstretched by decades of underinvestment.

All cushions have been exhausted, including land for building additional tracks. The situation has been exacerbated by the lack of an overarching authority that looks at transport needs of a new development and how it can be provided.

The case of converting land available after closure of mills into office and commercial space is illustrative. It increased the burden on an overloaded suburban train system, which was then left to the Indian Railways (IR) to address.

IR has been doing its best to cope with the increasing demand for movement resulting from expansion of the central business district in the south, rather than dispersing across all areas. This has forced people to travel from their homes in the north to their places of work in the south. As the demand for suburban transport has grown, IR has been adding new lines. Most of the network has four lines and a part of it even has six lines. It cannot add any more lines for lack of land for building tracks.

IR has also been increasing frequency of services and length of trains. It runs over 2,000 trains daily, with a 3-minute gap between trains. Over 7 million passengers use the suburban railway every day. The Railways has now reached a situation where adding more trains is problematic. The result of the relentless increase in demand is that coaches are carrying nearly 16 persons per square metre, which is just not possible without people

TRYING ITS BEST

HANDS TIED OVER FUNDS

hanging from the coaches and falling off.

Nearly 20 people die every day falling from trains or crossing the tracks. No one talks about this though it has been happening for years. The stations need revamping, including foot overbridges. But there is no money to replace some of this over-age infrastructure as was brought out by the reply of the then railway minister Suresh Prabhu to an MP requesting replacement of this foot overbridge. The problem has now reached a stage were IR is also a victim — of policies that have not coordi- nated land development with transport creation. Expecting the Railways to be able to provide enough transportation to meet the demand without massive injection of capital for revamping the system is being unrealistic.

An inquiry course has to be held in accordance with the Railway Act. But this will not go beyond immediate occurrence and, therefore, leave the problem unresolved.

To address the major challenges arising from existing shortfalls in the transport network — the results of decades of underfunding and the huge population and

WHERE THERE’S A WILL...

employment growth over the years — requires a political commitment to look at the ecosystem, develop the best strategies and investment programmes to support turning Mumbai into a world-class metropolis, meeting its economic and social objectives, as well as transport needs for the next 25 years.

IR is at the receiving end but that is being a bit unfair. The Railways management is professional and doing its best in a challenging environment created by lack of money.

The tragic accident has placed the ball in the minister’s court.

The only way to solve this problem to have consistent political direction in creating an arrangement at the highest political level, which coordinates land development and provision of transport of all types. Creation of funding mechanisms that provide for replacement of over-age infrastructure of the Railways by a modern system that can meet the needs of the city for the next 25 years and the rest of the Railways is also needed.

There is, of course, an immediate need to replace old, dilapidated foot overbridges and encroachments, which should be done immediately.

(Railway minister) Piyush Goyal has the challenging task of finding a way around the conundrum of increasing demand, lack of capacity and no money to create new capacity. The advantage he has is that the Railways management is capable of implementing, if he can provide the funds and political support where required.