Requiem for Delhi's Ring Railway

I am sceptical of tracks being built along Ring Railway line to allow. Nor am I sure Northern Railways would like tourists to see the entire line, which is hardly pretty at places of encroachment

Every once in a while, something will appear about reviving Delhi’s Ring Railway. Most Delhi residents have probably never travelled on it. We need to explain what we precisely mean by the Ring Railway.  One definition is a length of 35 km, spanning 20 stations. Hazrat Nizamuddin (NZM) is the key. Travelling clockwise on the map, one duly passes through Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar, Safdarjung, Chanakyapuri, Kirti Nagar, Patel Nagar, Daya Basti, Sarai Rohilla (DEE), Kishan Ganj, Sadar Bazaar, New Delhi (NDLS) and Pragati Maidan, until one is back in Hazrat Nizamuddin. There is a broader definition of Ring Railway, which can bring in the loop to the north-west, encompassing Shakurbasti and Naya Azadpur in its fold. This will make it 43 km and 22 stations. These are familiar names and destinations, some of them tourist destinations, places one would like to visit by Ring Railway, if possible. But there is a catch. To appreciate this, one must remember Delhi’s Ring Railway doesn’t exist in isolation. It is part of a broader railway network. Think about these railway links. (1) Delhi-Ghaziabad-Khurja; (2) Delhi-Ghaziabad-Hapur-Garhmukteshwar; (3) Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut; (3) Shahdara-Shamli-Saharanpur; (4) Delhi-Shakurbasti-Rohtak; (5) Delhi-Subzi Mandi-Sonepat-Panipat; (6) Delhi-Faridabad-Palwal-Mathura; (7) Delhi-Gurgaon-Rewari-Alwar. The Ring Railway is embedded in this broader network, emanating primarily from NDLS, Old Delhi Railway Station (DLI) and NZM.

That network predates Ring Railway. GAL (goods avoiding line) and DAL (Delhi avoiding line) predate Ring Railway. These expressions, GAL and DAL, are used quite often, but people aren’t always clear about what they mean. To the extent I understand it, GAL was first applied for the Ghaziabad-Tughlakabad line, opened via Yamuna Bridge in November 1966. From eastern side, freight traffic could reach the yard in Tughlakabad without touching either NDLS or DLI. But passenger traffic to NDLS via Tughlakabad Bridge also became part of an extended GAL in 1967. Later, in 1969, there was DAL, lines from Tughlakabad to Rohtak and Panipat, bypassing both NDLS and DLI. Marshalling yards were moved to Tughlakabad and Shakurbasti. More generally, bypassing DLI from the eastern side seems to be GAL. For freight, bypassing both NDLS and DLI seems to be DAL. How many passenger trains run on Ring Railway today, passenger trains meaning EMUs (electric multiple units)? There seem to be two a day, 64087 and 64089. At least, these are the Parikrama trains. I am not quite certain about how many trains run, since there seems to be some unpredictability about their timings.  

Illustration by Binay Sinha

The average daily ridership on Delhi metro is more than 2.75 million. The DTC figure is probably around 3 million. Compare that with an estimated daily figure of 3,500 for Ring Railway. But in fairness, Ring Railway was never meant to be suburban passenger transport. After GAL and DAL, the entire stretch of 35 km was built in 1975. But this has always been meant for freight, not passenger services. Along came Asian Games of 1982 and there was Ring Railway. Except for the north-western stretch, it was parallel to Inner Ring Road and just inside it. It seemed to be a good idea to showcase and integrate it as part of Delhi’s transport system. However, there are several problems. Delhi isn’t Mumbai. It has continuously expanded geographically, almost in concentric circles. Places along Outer Ring Road might have seemed like the periphery in 1982, but are the core today. DTC improved. There was metro.  Ring Railway was never quite integrated into this. There weren’t feeder services, road connectivity and access to Ring Railway stations wasn’t good enough. Despite Ring Railway being cheaper than metro and DTC and improvements in some stations during Commonwealth Games, Ring Railway has become part of Delhi’s history. You will occasionally hear about its revival.

Northern Railways (NR) will run heritage trains along it — Safdarjung station, Anand Vihar, DLI, NDLS, NZM and back to Safdarjung station. Perhaps, but only in very small stretches. Not as long as freight traffic exists. Using the metric of capacity utilisation, Ring Railway stands at 130 per cent. With new tracks, which require money, it is possible that this freight traffic, not always meant for Delhi, will do another round of DAL and bypass Delhi, freeing up capacity. But there is a limit beyond which this bypassing of Delhi cannot happen. There is also the ticklish matter of encroachments. I read a report by Indicus Foundation on an integrated public transport system for Delhi, building Ring Railway into the network. This mentions 600,000 squares of railway land encroached, with 47,000 jhuggees. Some other figures are mentioned in a petition before National Green Tribunal in 2014. Of 70 kms of railway lines in Delhi, 22 km have been encroached upon. Note that encroachment on railway land doesn’t mean owners don’t have legal leases from elsewhere. From 2015, all of us remember the demolition drive of 1,000 slums in Shakurbasti. Does one seriously expect political support for action against encroachment or credible rehabilitation of slums? 

Shakurbasti is not the first time there was such an attempt. Pul Mithai, near DLI, is one such. (There is also a question of how one reads various sections of the 2010 Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board Act and of railways bearing costs.) Hence, I am sceptical of new tracks being built along the Ring Railway line to allow for passenger traffic. Nor am I sure NR would like tourists to see the entire Ring Railway line, which is hardly pretty at places of encroachment.

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The author is chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Views are personal