The Hindu Business Line : Railways on a positive track

Rationalisation was the mantra even in passenger services, with at least four premium Shatabdi and Jan Shatabdi trains being downgraded due to low passenger volumes.

New Delhi , Dec 30

THE Indian Railways saw several ups and downs in the year, but closed 2003 on a positive note with the accident rate well in control and freight and passenger performance recording an all-time high.

The first half of the year saw a spate of train accidents, which at one point led to demands that the Railway Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, should step down. But the last few months have been relatively safe for the behemoth.

The Railways may have blamed the accidents on "bad luck despite best efforts" at that time, but now are keen to claim that their efforts are bearing fruit. The Ministry, taking a serious view on safety, put out a White Paper in April and followed it up with a 10-year Corporate Safety Plan in August. According to the Railway Corporate Safety Plan (2003-2013), the Railways would allocate four per cent of its working expenses for protection systems that will be taken up under the head of `Other Safety Works'.

The year has also ended on a positive note on the operational side. With the economy looking up, the Railways had moved nearly 360 million tonnes (m.t.) of cargo till the end of November, which was significantly higher than the target. The buoyancy in the freight operations has prompted the Railways to raise its loading target for the financial year to 550 m.t. from 540 m.t. The Railways carried 515 m.t. of revenue earning goods traffic in 2002-03.

The Railways claim that the improved freight performance was not just because the economy was growing. The tariff rationalisation exercise and efforts to become more customer-friendly also played its role.

Ironically, however, the Railways faltered on wagon procurement during the year, with just 8,500 new wagons being added to the fleet mainly on account of public sector companies failing to make deliveries. The target of 20,000 new wagons in the financial year 2003-04 appears difficult, but the Railway Board is confident that it will narrow the gap in the last quarter of the year.

The passenger business has also seen a steady rise of 2.85 per cent till November, against a decline of three per cent in the same period last year. Rationalisation was the mantra even in passenger services, with at least four premium Shatabdi and Jan Shatabdi trains being downgraded due to low passenger volumes.

The year, which was declared by the Railways as `Passenger Amenities Year' did see several initiatives, with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation bringing tickets only a mouse click away and opening multi-cuisine food plazas offering wholesome food in swanky restaurants at a dozen Railway stations. The Railways also launched its own brand of packaged drinking water `Rail Neer' during the year.

The year also saw introduction of the new-design coaches on the Mumbai Rajdhani recently. The coaches have been manufactured indigenously at the Kapurthala-based Rail Coach Factory under a transfer of technology pact with Linke Hoffman Bosch-Alstom, marking a new design after three decades.

Marking a new trend in financing of rail projects, the Railways is close to finalising a memorandum of understanding with the Pipavav and Mundhra ports for the 313 km Gandhidham-Palanpur gauge conversion project in Gujarat through the special purpose vehicle route.

But the Railways did seem to slow down with the ambitious golden quadrilateral and port connectivity project with its latest subsidiary, Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, yet to get a full-time managing director. The company has started work by inviting consultants to prepare detailed project reports for 20 projects, but nothing major emerged during the year.

Another fledgling Railways' subsidiary, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, has also been head-less for five months. While the company has benefited from the falling telecom equipment prices and is on target with the laying of its optical fibre cable network, it is yet to launch its highly vaunted Internet on train service.

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