Off the rails

Govt can't give railway safety a short shrift

Another 39 people have lost their lives after the Hirakhand Express derailed in Vizianagaram on Saturday evening. This is the third such horrific incident in the past three months. In November, 146 people died when 14 coaches of the Indore-Patna Express derailed and in December, 15 coaches of the Sealdah-Ajmer Express went off the rails. Every incident has led to loud cries from experts and the public, asking the government to address safety concerns. But on every occasion the government has chosen to believe that the incident is likely to have been the result of sabotage. That was the view of the Indian Railways spokesperson in the latest case as well even though the Odisha director-general of police went on record to state that there was no indication of Maoist involvement in the accident. Whether or not there was sabotage is a matter on which clarity will emerge only after an inquiry. However, given the spate of accidents, the government and the Indian Railways would be well advised to introspect and prioritise safety. This is all the more pertinent because the Union Budget is round the corner and will, for the first time, also incorporate the Railway Budget.

If one looks at the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on railway safety, submitted last month, it will become clear why all the three accidents essentially happened because the trains “derailed” from the tracks. Even though the number of accidents and casualties have been coming down over the years, 75 to 85 per cent of all railway accidents every year happen due to derailment. The reason in each case is the lack of adequate maintenance and track renewal. To understand the magnitude of the problem, one should consider that “while the traffic of passengers and freight over the railway network have increased by 1,344 per cent and 1,642 per cent, respectively, over the last 64 years, the route kilometres have grown by only 23 per cent”. This data underscores not only the acute pressure on the existing tracks but also the investment gap, which is due, in turn, to low internal generation of resources. Railway expenditure as a percentage of transport sector expenditure has come down from 56 per cent in the Seventh Plan to 30 per cent in the Eleventh Plan. Not surprisingly then, “out of a total 1,219 sections, 492 sections (40 per cent) are running at 100 per cent or above line capacity”.

It is not that nothing has been done about the tracks, which form the backbone of the railway system. Track upkeep and renewal are carried out under the Depreciation Reserve Fund. But the appropriation to the fund in the 2016-17 Budget was Rs 3,200 crore, nearly 60 per cent less than the 2015-16 budgeted figure of Rs 7,900 crore and 42 per cent less than the revised estimate of Rs 5,500 crore. Doing so helped the government to project a lower operating ratio (the ratio of railway working expenditure to revenue earned from traffic) for 2016-17. Indian Railways has been taking a hit on its revenues on the one hand and on the other it has been losing out to both air travel and road transport. If lax safety standards are not addressed urgently, the Indian Railways will acquire an unsafe tag soon.