Train of revival: Station redevelopment must go beyond 'prettification'

The Indian Railways should accept with alacrity the offer by two of India's leading architects, Hafeez Contractor and C P Kukreja, to develop some stations free of cost. The offers come just as Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation (IRSDC) gets ready to announce an empanelled group of architects to redesign 600-odd stations, as announced in the Budget. Messrs Contractor and Kukreja’s offers are important because both can be relied on to introduce an imaginative and dynamic aesthetic to India’s depressingly dingy railway stations.

One of the mysteries of independent India has been the appaling deterioration in standards of public architecture. The difference becomes particularly acute when set against the high standards of public buildings from ancient India through Mughal building projects to British colonial times. The lack of a modern Indian architectural idiom has left Indian cities scarred with jerry-built public buildings, irreverently known as the PWD school of architecture, that range from the unremarkable to the hideous. The upshot of this approach has been to drive private construction towards the wholly unsuitable Dubai glass-and-concrete tradition. Employing architects with global experience and a proven reputation for bold new concepts could go a long way towards offering this massive and ambitious station redevelopment project — certainly the largest in independent India’s history — a much-needed track change towards a sustainable signature architecture that maximises resources and design values.

The station redevelopment project, however, needs to go beyond this. Indian consumer-facing buildings are famous for their lack of convenience and disagreeable environment, and Indian stations are the finest examples of these flaws. Ticket queues that spill out on to public concourses, crowded platforms, information boards that are conspicuous by their absence, poor toilet and drinking water facilities, the shocking lack of amenities for the disabled and the sick, the shortage of foot overbridges are all familiar shortcomings of stations even in the largest cities. These obvious flaws will be addressed in the new architectural layouts, no doubt. But they are only part of the problem.

No less critical are the institutional systems and processes that enhance good design. Calibrating train timings to ensure that platforms are not crowded to the point of presenting the danger of stampedes is one of them. Given the Indian Railways’ poor record on punctuality, this alone will demand a system-wide change. Equally critical is ensuring hygiene, which does not appear to be high on the list of the Indian travelling public. The rapid deterioration of the spanking new Inter State Bus Terminus in the National Capital Region remains a cautionary example of the destructive power of India’s aam aadmi when it comes to public property. Then again, most stations also remain oases of criminality and the last place where women can feel safe. The Delhi Metro’s extensive vigilance establishment to ensure that property is not defaced and women remain (relatively) safe offers a best-in-class model to emulate. The vast multitudes travelling on one of the world’s most crowded public transport systems expand the challenge by several orders of magnitude, however.

To be sure, initiatives on this scale cost money that the government will be hard-pressed to provide. It would do well to accede to the Railways’ request to allow IRSDC to raise money from the open market, an avenue that will force accountability and transparency into the station redevelopment project. In short, the station redevelopment project offers the Indian Railways an invaluable opportunity to make a significant step-change in the way it functions. Without that fundamental shift, the project can degenerate into an exercise in futility.