The alarm bells sounded by the high-level committee on the “grim” financial condition of Indian Railways, which is on “the verge of collapse”, needs the immediate attention of the government and the implementation of the 106 recommendations made by the committee. Even scarier than saying that Indian Railways could go the Air India way is the concern the committee expressed about the immense dangers and risk to the lives of passengers because of corroded rail tracks and sub-standard safety infrastructure.
The committee has said Rs 1,00,000 crore is needed just to upgrade the security system infrastructure, particularly on the 19,000-km high-density trunk route. It is also imperative for Indian Railways to change the present toilet system, which has led to a dangerous corrosion of rail tracks and undercarriages of wagons. Forty-three thousand wagons need new toilet systems. The discharge from the toilets corrodes rails and the clips and liners that hold the tracks together, the committee said, and noted that even railway staff refuse to clean the tracks and the undercarriages because they are so unclean, not to mention unhygienic. One can imagine the dangers ahead.
A country that has made such tremendous advances in space and technology can surely find ways to build an advanced and hygienic toilet system. Indian Railways is said to have tried out a different system but seemed to have got nowhere despite spending Rs 4,000 crore. The committee has laid put a road map of how Rs 20,000 crore can be collected without much effort. It has suggested a safety cess that would net Rs 5,000 crore annually; deferment of dividend, which would save a like amount; a road cess that would bring in Rs 1,000 crore; and Rs 4,000 crore from the development of its land holdings. Railway minister Dinesh Trivedi has rejected the cess idea, which he probably finds a political hot potato, but agrees on the recommendations on dividend and land use.
Like so many things about India’s creaking public utilities, the railways need more than just a bailout package; may be even one of those empowered group of ministers headed by someone like finance minister Pranab Mukherjee or Pulok Chatterjee, the new principal secretary to the PM, to prioritise the implementation of the recommendations of the high-powered committee. The committee, headed by former Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar, was formed after two major accidents last year. The government and the railways will have to stop playing politics and seriously consider how to get the Indian railways back on track. To begin with they can abandon the idea of announcing new trains in the Budget without the concomitant infrastructure.