{"id":34935,"date":"2018-10-31T14:30:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34935"},"modified":"2018-10-31T14:30:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T09:00:08","slug":"waiting-for-a-signal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/waiting-for-a-signal\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for a signal:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/waiting-for-a-signal\/article19754676.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waiting for a signal<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Brief overview<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The article, focussing on safety, talks about the problems faced by the Indian railways.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It also suggests measure which could be taken to improve the situation.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Is there a problem of priorities?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Political priorities of Railway Ministers- focus on more trains and better speed instead of safety and capacity building to cope with the existing system.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Politicians lack the expertise in railway matters. Advice of professional gets ignored, especially when it does not gel with political compulsions of the politicians.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What are the results of the above situation?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Haphazard introduction of trains.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subsidising passenger fares by overcharging freight.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Investment in unwanted new facilities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Modernisation and induction of new technologies without a plan.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the fallout of this situation?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Balkanization of organization on departmental lines, with each following its own narrow goals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Decision-making revolves around pursuing immediate goals that can show the department in a good light.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Safety concerns in light of recent incidents<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What has led to this situation?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The situation is the outcome of pursuing three inconsistent goals at the organisational level. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moving more people by continuously adding trains even when sections are saturated.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Focussing on increasing speed and punctuality.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diverting freight earnings to subsidise passenger fares.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are incompatible with the declared objective of safety, especially when there is a shortage of capacity to run existing services.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem is further exacerbated by a lack of money to replace old assets or purchase spares.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Utkal train accident is a distressing example of how incompatible organisational goals connect to unsafe behaviour at the field level.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What can be done by the new Railway Minister to address the situation?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Make difficult political decisions;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cut back on trains on saturated sections<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Put punctuality on the backburner for the time being<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Allot time for maintenance even at the cost of delaying trains<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Make sure, in the matters related to field work, judgement of supervisory staff is respected<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Restore the well-established practice of field inspections at all levels<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ensure money for maintenance and replacement of aged assets<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Free freight from subsidizing passenger fares through subvention from general budget.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Waiting for a signal:\u00a0 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&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/waiting-for-a-signal\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Waiting for a signal:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704816970},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}