Current Problems in Indian Railways

Indian railways suffers from deteriorating finances and lack the funds for future investment. Last year, India spent $28 billion, or 3.6% of GDP, on infrastructure. The main problem plaguing the Railways is the high accident rate which stands at about three hundred a year. Although accidents such as derailment and collisions are less common in recent times, many are run over by trains, especially in crowded areas. Indian Railways have accepted the fact that given the size of operations, eliminating accidents is an unrealistic goal, and at best they can only minimize the accident rate. Human error is the primary cause (83%) blamed for mishaps. The Konkan Railway route suffers from landslides in the monsoon season, which has caused fatal accidents in the recent past.

Contributing to the Railways' problems are the antiquated communication, safety and signaling equipment. One area of upgrading badly required is an automated signaling system to prevent crashes. A number of train accidents happened due to a manual system of signals between stations. However, the changeover to a new system would require a substantial investment. It is felt that this would be required given the gradual increase in train speeds and lengths, that would make accidents more dangerous. In the latest instances of signaling control by means of interlinked stations (e.g., Chennai - Washermanpet), failure-detection circuits are provided for each track circuit and signal circuit with notification to the signal control centres in case of problems. However, this is available in a very small subset of the total Railways.

Aging colonial-era bridges and century-old tracks also require regular maintenance and upgrading. In recent years Indian Railways has claimed that it has achieved a financial turnaround, with (unaudited) operating profits expected to improve by 83.7%. Credit for this achievement has been claimed by current Indian Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav who claims to have brought a significant improvement in operating efficiency of goods traffic after he took over as Railway Minister in May 2004.

The Rajdhani Express and Shatabadi Express are the fastest and most luxurious trains of Indian Railways, though they face increasing pressure from air travel, as the trains travel only 80 km per hour (c.f. Fastest trains in India) and their food and service is not competitive. To modernize Indian Rail and to bring it at par with the developed world, would require a massive investment of about US$100 billion.

Sixth Pay Commission has been constituted in India to review the pay structure of the Government employees and its recommendations are expected by the end of 2008 and based on its recommendations, the salaries of all Railways officers and staff are expected to be revised with retrospective effect (w.e.f. January 01, 2006). If previous Pay Commissions are taken as indicator then this revision will not be less than 50% upwards and it may hit Railways bottomlines severely and possibly mitigate all the good work of the Railways.

Sanitation and use of modern technology in that area has been a problem. Although Indian Rail has announced the introduction of dry toilets in the trains, so far not much headway has been made and the train toilets continue to drop the wastes on the rail tracks.

Plans to upgrade coaches and services are on track. New LHB German coaches, manufactured in India, were scheduled to be introduced in 2007 on the daily run of the prestigious East Central Railway (ECR) Patna-New Delhi Radjhani Express. These coaches will enhance the safety and riding comfort of passengers, and in time will eventually replace thousands of old model coaches throughout Indian Railways. Three new manufacturing units will be set up to produce state-of-the-art locomotives and coaches. Channel music, TV screens showing the latest films, and optional menus from five-star hotels are soon to be introduced on the Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express. Base kitchens and food services across the system are also slated for a makeover. More importantly, a whole new IT management infrastructure will be developed to better handle ticketing, freight, rolling stock (wagons), terminals, and rail traffic.

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Problems in Indian Railways
written by Poker Singh, July 26, 2009

Problems in Indian Railways are many but they fight hard to solve them and to improve the services and other facilities in Indian Railways.

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