Budget@10: Four ministers and 10 yrs later Indian Railways still running late and is unsafe

According to a Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report, 69 percent of accidents were due to derailments caused by issues like track defects, incorrect loco-piloting, engineering and maintenance issues, and operational errors

Indian Railway (IR) has had a decade of some big projects, and yet on some fronts, not much has changed. While Vande Bharat trains have cut travel time and given a facelift to the IR, recent accidents have exposed that much still needs to be done for safety.

Accidents (misses)

Between April and October, India witnessed 25 consequential train accidents: six collisions, 13 derailments, and six fires in trains, taking the lives of around 400 people and injuring another 1,000.

The IR defines consequential accidents as those that cause loss of life, several injuries, loss of rail property, or stoppage of rail traffic.

Not only have these accidents raised questions about whether the top brass of the IR has failed to enforce safety regulations, but they have also highlighted the slow implementation of Kavach, the indigenous train collision avoidance system.

According to a Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report, 69 percent of accidents were due to derailments caused by issues like track defects, incorrect loco-piloting, engineering and maintenance issues, and operational errors.

Falling revenue

Apart from safety concerns, the IR is also plagued by a high operating ratio. The operating ratio is a benchmark of internal efficiency that measures operating expenses against revenue and is an important marker for the railways. The lower the ratio, the healthier the IR's finances are.

The IR's operating ratio has been rising since 2018-19 from 97.29 percent. The IR’s freight segment is profitable, whereas the passenger segment makes losses. The government has set an operating ratio target of 98.45 percent for 2023–24, which is higher than the 98.22 percent seen last year.

Industry experts say the higher ratio is due to the build-up fund balance and increased social service obligations of the railways.

Speed of trains

Despite the IR's capital expenditure quadrupling between 2014-15 and 2023-24, the speed of trains in India has not improved significantly.

An audit by the CAG found that the speed of trains has remained almost unchanged for passenger trains and has actually reduced for freight trains to 23.6 km per hour.

In 2015, the IR had envisaged increasing the average speed of passenger trains to 75 km per hour from 50 km per hour and of freight trains to 50 km per hour from 25 km per hour by the end of 2021-22.

Asset monetisation

The IR has also been the slowest ministry in terms of asset monetisation over the last 10 years.

Despite ambitious plans to raise funds from the monetisation of passenger and goods trains and railway stations, the IR has been forced to rethink its entire strategy due to lukewarm responses.

Since 2021, the IR has raised only Rs 18,000 crore, compared to its monetisation target of Rs 1.52 lakh crore till March 2025.

New infrastructure and trains (Hits)

However, not all is gloomy in the railway sector in India. The government has awarded contracts to procure 800 WAG 12 electric freight locomotives and 400 Vande Bharat Trains for an estimated cost of Rs 1.2 lakh crore over the next eight years.

Similarly, the IR has awarded a contract to acquire 60,000 wagons and 15.4 lakh wheels in the next three years at an estimated cost of Rs 35,500 crore.

Apart from these, the IR has outlined a plan to invest Rs 1 lakh crore in procuring 7,000-8,000 new trains in the next four to five years to address the growing demand in the passenger travel sector.

Dedicated freight corridors

Till March 2023, 66.27 percent (886 km of the total 1,337 km) of the eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and 57.30 percent (863 km of the 1,506 km) of the western DFC were commissioned, with a cumulative capex of Rs 99,872 crore.

The average speed of goods trains on the DFCs has increased from around 20 km per hour to around 30 km per hour on the eastern DFC and 40 km per hour on the western DFC in the last year.

Both DFCs, once fully operational, are expected to be game-changers for India since, at present, freight trains are made to wait for passenger trains on common rail lines.

Expert-Speak

Anil Saini, Managing Director, Rolling Stock & Components at Alstom India, told Moneycontrol that for IR to double its freight traffic by 2030, it will have to come out with locomotive procurement orders in the next two to three years.

Davinder Sandhu, Co-founder and Chairman of consultancy firm Primus Partners, told Moneycontrol that for IR to improve its asset monetisation it should focus on land and related assets that can be better isolated as standalone profit centres.

Sudhanshu Mani, chief architect of India’s first Vande Bharat project, also told Moneycontrol that to increase cargo volumes, the IR should allow shipping companies to book individual wagons with the provision to run a train to schedule even if the train is not fully loaded.