The need is to go back to the basics, to rid spirit of jugaad or chaltaa hai After the heat and dust of the last few days following the horrific rail accident at Balasore, it is an opportune moment for sanguine reflection on essential safeguards suggested by several commentators for the railways to initiate. Immensity of shock and gloom caused by the June 2 three-train accident that took a disconcerting toll of 288 lives and injured over 1,000 has sent shivers down the spine of people around the country. How did it all come about?

Was the gruesome accident avoidable? Prima facie, it appears the mishap was indeed avoidable, only if the prescribed mandatory operating procedure was not breached. Snippets from various sources, including observations from the Railway Minister at site, suggest the “root cause” to be a case of “unauthorised manual overriding”, a ‘quick fix’, in gross violation of the prescribed safety protocol.

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The accident has elicited a heightened public reaction: some have talked of the network getting over-strained by increasing passenger trains and emphasis on their punctual running; citing the recent CAG report, others have highlighted under-funding of rail renewals and assets replenishment, and the railways has been faulted for absence of just developed indigenous anti-collision device, Kavach, all over IR’s tracks. It is essential to comprehend the solemn task enjoined upon railways, that is, to deliver optimal volumes of freight for country’s farms and factories, homes and hearths, besides ferrying millions of countrymen for their myriad needs and obligations.

What railways is able to do in regard to goods uplifting as also passenger travel is far below the requirements and demands. IR’s share in country’s crucial freight market has been constantly dwindling: against a desired optimal share of 35-40 per cent that should have come at present, and planned at a level of 45 per cent by 2030, today it is just around 17-18 per cent (as assessed by Niti Aayog). Rail passenger share too has been sliding, currently estimated at about 5-7 per cent. World over there is clamour for Shift2Rail, inter alia, for saving the planet from being cooked by climate change.

Additionally, India needs its railway system as its life-line to grow not just incrementally, but exponentially, to substantially raise its modal share, be a bulwark in its integrated logistics domain. While, no doubt, stretching the organisation beyond its limit would as a rule be wholly inadvisable, it is legitimately expected that IR would raise its carrying capacity consistent with its potential and dollops of investments being ploughed in the system.

Further, insistence on train punctuality can in no way be detrimental; in essence it implies commitment to efficiency and discipline. Simultaneously, essential maintenance of assets and equipment must in no circumstances be neglected. The service ‘blocks’ need a holistic and coordinated approach for concerned departments to gain optimal results, with least dislocation of train services. As a mature polity and people, India can ill afford petty politics to blur real issues. How does one comprehend the convoluted logic adduced by numerous worthies that the bullet train project be scrapped, and the Vande Bharat project be halted.

These developments do in no way dilute IR’s emphasis on safety across the existing network. If accidents on roads occur as often as they do, we don’t halt construction of costly expressways. Amidst an unequivocal commitment needed for zero tolerance for unsafe rail operations, there can be no role for political dispensations to try outsmarting each other. Ironically, some vociferous protestations came from those who presided as reigning deities in Rail Bhawan.

Some respondents reacted that, in reality, these leaders needed to be reminded of partisan and warped priorities they had followed; viewing the ‘railway empire’ as a fiefdom, they relished showering benedictions, playing populist they frittered away resources on unviable projects, leaving the nation’s lifeline battered and bruised, damaging its ethos and culture.

Again, let the perspective be clear: notwithstanding the fact that an accident would raise natural and legitimate concerns, IR’s safety record over last 70 years has seen the number of accidents fall a hundred-fold, from 5.5 per million train km in 1960-61 to 2.2 in 1980, and further to 0.05 by 2019. A sharp drop in accidents is discernible.

For example, 415 such mishaps were reported in 2001-02; the number came down to 34 in 2021-22. Blissfully, the system had zero fatality in two years ~ 2019-20 and 2020-21. Symptomatic of operational efficiency, safety is indeed integral to all operations; an accident signifies a breakdown in efficiency, a flaw or failure in the system.

Traditional analysts hold that accidents occur in any activity involving movement, that railways is a transport enterprise in which accidents have been happening ever since the day Stephenson’s Rocket mortally injured Huskisson, a Member of the British Parliament, and the broadsides the Punch fired in the Death And His Brother Sleep.

Take roads. Topping the table with 10 per cent of world road crashes, road accidents in India take a toll of as many as 15 people every hour. Modern technologies and systems help ensure risk-free rail operation. Shinkansen bullet trains in Japan running at 250 km/h and higher have operated over almost sixty years, with no fatality. TGVs in France report a similar feat. Understandably, quest for Kavach has been highlighted for rapid deployment across IR system; it involves development of vendors’ capacity and allied infrastructure. It cannot be whistled into instant planting of the components over all tracks and locomotives. Involving very high costs, these technologies demand modern mind-set, appropriate management structure, and skilled workforce.

Technical and technological remedies can help IR, only up to a point; it is in dire need of managerial transformation. IR has been constantly investing in newer technologies, mechanisation of maintenance, upgradation of track structure, including higher capacity long welded rails, their ultrasonic testing, on-track and digital machines and electronic monitoring of track geometry. It should be unacceptable to allow the extent of assets failures that indeed occur, impacting train operations and jeopardising safety.

Rail track fractures and weld failures hovered around 1,620 in 2022-23; diesel and electric locomotive failures remained at a level of 4,100 and 14,150 respectively; wagon detachments from running trains were 545; train partings more than 700; hot axle on over 770 wagons on run; failures of overhead electric wires recorded were more than 1,800, and signalling equipment failures were of the order of 52,000. While the extent of loss of life and/or material assets is fortuitous, let it be a leitmotif, an article of faith that each case of failure being potentially fraught with grave risk, as the Balasore mishap has shown, receives due diligence. Human failure remains the bugbear of safe rail operations. In addition to relentless thrust to training and counselling of workforce associated with train running and safety, Railways must vigorously restore their celebrated purposeful “inspection” regime, obliging all managers to manage things from the “saddle” instead of from the “seat” in office, to regularly visit the field and keep all activity centres constantly on their radar.

The Kakodkar Safety Committee made 106 recommendations, with a projected implementation cost of Rs 103,110 crore. Amidst bureaucratic pusillanimity, IR management has been implementing in fits and starts what was also recommended by the committee. For instance, modern signalling: 97 per cent of all broad gauge stations were equipped with electronic interlocking and track circuiting by end-March 2022.

Since April 2018, all new manufacture of passenger coaches is being done on LHB platform. The inventory of its wagon fleet, coaches and locomotives has shown robust features and sophistication. To be dynamic and vibrant, IR must remain healthy. To be healthy, it needs wealth. Being wealthy on borrowed wealth will not serve. IR’s finances remain perilous, all its funds dry up fast like the country’s streams. It has immense possibilities to earn far more; it also has huge scope to trim its fat and pare expenses.

With as much commonality as the Army and IR share, there’s much to learn for IR. The Army is busy, creating a leaner, hightech fighting force, slashing nonoperational flab, downsizing its HQs, and reconfiguring its divisions and corps into agile integrated battle groups of the size of a brigade. It plans to shed around 150,000 personnel, alongside officer cadre restructuring, involving a possible reduction in the overall authorisation by about 5,000. Time does not stand still.

No organisation or country can afford to get stuck in time, history or geography. IR can ill afford to wallow in the pernicious dynamics of status quo. Echoing the prevalent public perception of IR’s creeping infirmities, the IR Board’s functioning is far from that of a cohesive corporate body.

The Anil Kakodkar-led rail safety review committee report, 2012 emphasised that the status quo ante to be restored for senior general management posts to be manned only by those who get ‘battle-inoculated’ going through the rigours of action in the field, to deliver services that is IR’s primary task (much like the senior command posts in defence establishment being filled mostly by the fighting arms).

(The writer is former CMD of CONCOR, and now Distinguished Fellow at Asian Institute of Transport Development)