The Hindu Business Line : Railways' heavy task

Another Special Purpose Vehicle with a brand new name and perhaps a matching logo to add to the Indian Railways' growing number of units. However, the moot point is whether it will become another RVNL (Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd), carrying with it the work ethics and mindset of the lumbering giant, or blossom into a DMRC (Delhi Metro Rail Corporation) with a track record for project implementation worth emulating but rather difficult to match? It is going to be one of the most ambitious projects ever taken up by this 150-year-old Government entity with far-reaching impact on the economic growth for the next few decades.

However, the much-talked-about DFC (Dedicated Freight Corridor), the foundation stone for which was recently laid by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, is once again in news. This time it is for Railway's attempts to avoid payment of the annual contribution to the Finance Ministry, call it a dividend or interest on the funds it keeps on borrowing from the Central Exchequer for expenditure on projects it takes up on capital account. Reportedly, the five-year-holiday for dividend payment being requested is to fund the gigantic DFC scheme, which may end up swallowing as much as Rs 1 lakh crore over 10 years.

How will DFC shape up?

However, what is perhaps most important at the current juncture is the vital issue of the shape the DFC is going to take. Would it be just another set of double lines laid alongside the present alignment of main line tracks connecting Ludhiana to Kolkata and Dadri to Mumbai bypassing major yards and stations, or an entirely new route?

While the ready availability of land along the present right-of-way would be a major cost advantage and enable speedy implementation of the eastern sector project, the western corridor may find a direct path across the vast Thar desert more attractive. Making use of the existing alignment from Bhatinda in Punjab, to Kandla via Hissar, Churu, Merta Road, Samdhari and Bhildi would reduce the distance by about 350 km, which could translate into a substantial savings in transportation cost and transit time.

Land acquisition

Land acquisition along the existing right-of-way should not pose a serious problem. Sensing a golden opportunity, reportedly Gujarat has already pitched in with an offer to fund conversion of the existing 223-km metre gauge route from Bhildi to Samdhari in order to boost usage of its ports — Kandla and Mundra ports for EXIM container traffic.

Interestingly, the RITES (Rail India Techno-Economic Services) interim report of December 2005 found that while the Delhi-Vadodara section could see a three-fold jump from 10 to 30 trains per day by 2015, the freight trains on the Vadodara-Mumbai section would only increase from six to nine trains. It goes on to suggest that perhaps the Delhi-Kota-Vadodara alignment may not be ideal and a shorter route for the ports on the Gujarat's west coast via Ajmer-Ahmedabad, may be considered.

Electrification

While electrification of the eastern route would once for all close all options for achieving higher productivity made possible by carrying double stack containers to the eastern ports, Diesel-hauled route of Dadri to Mumbai will provide economies of scale for EXIM containers till it hits the electrified sections near Ahmedabad. Since it is dedicated to carrying freight, locating stations or bypassing loops spaced 250-300 km apart would make sense.

This would not only eliminate intermediate stations and the connected staff, it would also insulate the corridor from being ever converted into another passenger carrying route. A CTC (Centralised Traffic Control) system as is the norm on most of the heavy haul lines, particularly, in Australia, could usher in an era of state-of-the-art rail transport with vast economies in operational costs. In the absence of any passenger carrying trains and their propensity for hogging the tracks, freight trains hauled by multiple locomotives could well become the Rajdhanis of the DFC, hurtling along at an average speed of 100 kmph.

Part of overall network

As a strategic decision of a far-reaching impact, the Railways has wisely decided to keep the new project very much a part of its overall network. Not only would it eliminate the two entities working at cross purposes, it would also ensure a seamless transition from the existing terminals to the new ones, if ever they need to be set up.

Volumes and steady throughput, rather than speed, will be the guiding factor and anything over 120-130 kpmh could be hardly justified taking into account the steep rise in costs for providing grade separation etc. A state-of-the-art CTC with the capability for remote-control operation of the staff-less station equipment, elimination of the train guards and the ubiquitous brake vans would ensure low operating costs. Add to this, doing away with a lot of other carry on baggage such as Railway Protection Force (outsource the activity to private sector) staff quarters and sprawling colonies, would ensure financial viability from day one.

Private partnership

Private sector partnership in the vital field of project design and implementation, including track-laying, signalling, design and manufacture of upgraded rolling stock, locomotives and, last but not the least, a computerised system of billing, rake monitoring, etc., would go a long way in making the DFC a piece of infrastructure fully capable of meeting the nation's burgeoning demand for rail transport till 2050, if not further.

(The author is a former Member — Mechanical — Railway Board. He can be contacted at acharya@bol.net.in)

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