Angad Thakur and Tejas

He is trying to create a sense of citizen ownership of trains to prevent incidents of vandalism

Manihari, or Manihari Ghat, has lost some of the importance it used to possess. This is a place where Krishna is believed to have lost one of his jewels (mani), thus giving it the name of Manihari. Manihari is in Katihar district. Therefore, it is close to Katihar junction. If one travels towards the Northeast, one can’t miss Katihar.  It is a busy junction with lines that radiate in various directions — Barauni, Kumedpur, Purnea, Barsoi, Samastipur.  And there is a minor line from Katihar to Manihari, just under 25 km away.  Manihari is on the Ganga, near its confluence with the Koshi. The Farakka Barrage made Manihari lose some of its historical importance and also partly marginalised Sahebganj, 9 km away in Jharkhand. Before Farakka, if you intended to go to Darjeeling from Kolkata, there was a broad gauge line up to one bank of the Ganga. You crossed the river by ferry and took a metre gauge train from Manihari to Siliguri. With Farakka providing a broad gauge link in 1975, there wasn’t much use for the Manihari-Katihar metre gauge link. The Siliguri-Katihar segment was completely converted to broad gauge in 2011 and has traffic. But I wish to focus on the Katihar-Manihari link, originally built as early as 1887. More accurately, the line goes a bit beyond Manihari, up to Tejnarayanpur.

Should one have bothered about the Katihar-Manihari-Tejnarayanpur link (34 km)? It could have died a natural death. But Bihar has occasionally received special treatment. In the 1996-97 Railway Budget speech, Ram Vilas Paswan announced, “I intend to take up surveys for a new line from Katihar to Tejnarayanpur.” In 2008, the Railway Board sanctioned Rs 65 crore for gauge conversion. In 2010-11, Mamata Banerjee mentioned it as one of the projects identified for gauge conversion.  What was the point of gauge conversion if no trains were going to run on it? So she also announced a Katihar-Tejnarayanpur passenger train. In 2011, the Bihar chief minister flagged off the first train. Part of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), there are four unreserved passenger trains every day between Katihar and Tejnarayanpur, with general seating class accommodation. After all, the travel time is just over one hour. None of these eight trains (four up, four down) is financially viable.  There are six stops between Katihar and Tejnarayanpur. None of those, including Tejnarayanpur, is viable. Katihar junction is the only exception. Logically, we shouldn’t have wasted money on that broad gauge line and we shouldn’t waste money on these trains. Since road connectivity exists, no particular social objective is served.

On the inaugral run of the Mumbai CST-Karmali Tejas Express, several passengers trashed the train and vandalised it. On the day preceding the first run, unidentified people smashed some windows by pelting stones. PHOTO: PTI

NFR may still decide to cross-subsidise Katihar-Tejnarayanpur. Courtesy the Northeast proper, there is emphasis and enhanced allocations for NFR. But just in case NFR decides otherwise, there is Angad Thakur. Even if people pay, because of low fares, most passenger trains are loss-making. This is especially true of the general class. For unreserved, there is the additional problem of people not buying tickets, though the fare is a trifle. For example, the ticket from Katihar to Manihari costs Rs 10. As far as I can make out, Thakur lives in Katihar and he and his NGO were part of a campaign that argued for gauge conversion. Post conversion, NFR said that if trains weren’t viable, they wouldn’t run. Therefore, every day, Thakur travels to Manihari and cajoles passengers to purchase tickets. If poor people can’t pay, I believe the NGO buys tickets on their behalf. There is no travelling ticket examiner (TTE) on Katihar-Tejnarayanpur trains. That’s understandable. The expenditure on a TTE won’t be justified. If not in Delhi, the Thakur case is a fairly famous one in Bihar and within NFR. Many people have suggested that Thakur be made the TTE on these trains. That argument should be take a step further. This is a heritage line, or would have been one had it retained metre gauge status. In Britain for instance, heritage lines and railways aren’t preserved or operated by British Rail. They have effectively been outsourced to the private sector.  But we don’t have such a policy.  Moreover, thanks to gauge conversion, Katihar-Tejnarayanpur is no longer heritage.

Contrast Thakur with the incident on Mumbai CST-Karmali Tejas Express, on its inaugural run. Higher speed apart, this train has more passenger amenities, headphones, infotainment screens, reclining seats, USB charging ports, tea/coffee vending machines, touch-free water taps, automatic doors, CCTV cameras, GPS-based information displays. This isn’t a train where you travel unreserved. There is one executive chair car coach and the rest are all chair cars. It’s a completely air conditioned train. Passengers don’t pay Rs 10. If you travel the entire distance, you pay Rs 1,680 for chair car and Rs 2,680 for executive chair car. On that first run, these passengers trashed the train and vandalised everything, even stealing headphones. On the day preceding the first run, unidentified people smashed some windows by pelting stones. Forget unidentified miscreants, what about passengers on the train? All of them travelled reserved and there were CCTV cameras. I haven’t read anything about anyone being arrested or charged. In general, it is common to find passengers damage interiors of railway coaches. But typically, you won’t find it happening in metro coaches/trains. There seems to be some citizen ownership for metros, which is missing for trains. You can’t possibly have Railway Protection Force constables everywhere. Effectively,  Thakur is creating a sense of ownership in that train.

The writer is a member of the National Institution for Transforming India Aayog. The views are personal