Waiting for a signal: 

Waiting for a signal: 

Brief overview

• The article, focussing on safety, talks about the problems faced by the Indian railways.
• It also suggests measure which could be taken to improve the situation.

Is there a problem of priorities?

• Political priorities of Railway Ministers- focus on more trains and better speed instead of safety and capacity building to cope with the existing system.
• Politicians lack the expertise in railway matters. Advice of professional gets ignored, especially when it does not gel with political compulsions of the politicians.

What are the results of the above situation?

• Haphazard introduction of trains.
• Subsidising passenger fares by overcharging freight.
• Investment in unwanted new facilities.
• Modernisation and induction of new technologies without a plan.

What is the fallout of this situation?

• Balkanization of organization on departmental lines, with each following its own narrow goals.
• Decision-making revolves around pursuing immediate goals that can show the department in a good light.

Safety concerns in light of recent incidents

• The recent Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express derailment in UP shows that the number of trains have reached a level where field staff are unable to carry out maintenance work without cutting corners.
• The practice of repairing tracks without blocking trains is widespread. Trains are not blocked by the section control staff to ensure punctuality of the train.

What has led to this situation?

• The situation is the outcome of pursuing three inconsistent goals at the organisational level.
• Moving more people by continuously adding trains even when sections are saturated.
• Focussing on increasing speed and punctuality.
• Diverting freight earnings to subsidise passenger fares.
• These are incompatible with the declared objective of safety, especially when there is a shortage of capacity to run existing services.
• Unless the numbers of trains can be brought down to what the system can handle without cutting corners in track, signalling and rolling stock maintenance, there is really no way to make the system both safe and punctual.
• The problem is further exacerbated by a lack of money to replace old assets or purchase spares.
• The Utkal train accident is a distressing example of how incompatible organisational goals connect to unsafe behaviour at the field level.

What can be done by the new Railway Minister to address the situation?

• Make difficult political decisions;
• Cut back on trains on saturated sections
• Put punctuality on the backburner for the time being
• Allot time for maintenance even at the cost of delaying trains
• Make sure, in the matters related to field work, judgement of supervisory staff is respected
• Restore the well-established practice of field inspections at all levels
• Ensure the energies of field officers are not sapped by meaningless drives and social media and are focussed on their main job of oversight and corrective actions
• Ensure money for maintenance and replacement of aged assets
• Free freight from subsidizing passenger fares through subvention from general budget.