The Indian Railways, an important part of the country’s logistics eco-system, is in dire need of upgradation with focus on safety, modernisation and passenger amenities.

As it looks to become a modern organisation that is able to meet the expectations of a large section of the economically unprivileged as well as the growing middle class, it has to battle the challenges of competition from the road sector and airlines as well.

What still works for the Railways is that for many people living in the nooks and corners of the country, trains are the only means of travelling long distances. The huge waiting lists for booking tickets are a testimony to that.

Simultaneously, there are challenges. Facing several accidents last year, the Railways embarked on steps — sending messages to its rank and file — that safety of passengers was non-negotiable, even if it meant inconveniences in the form of delayed train journeys, or cancellation of trains.

It has embarked on huge investments in upgrading infrastructure, and taking up relaying of tracks.

By using the new tracks, Railways has been serving its freight segment, wrestling back additional cargo from other modes in the process.

In the passenger segment, it plans to target the long distance segment with high speed trains. Right now, for relatively shorter distances with high traffic, it has started introducing trains where people are willing to pay a little higher, as this will take care of its earnings.

As a result, for the three quarters ending December 2017, the Railways moved an additional 7 per cent passengers against the same period last year. In the freight segment, the transporter registered a 4.77 per cent growth in loading and a higher increase of 5.65 per cent in throughput. This indicates that cargo is moving for longer lead distances, with spruced up earnings.

It is also looking at having a data analysis unit. Given that it chugs over 20 million passengers daily — a ready market for food, water, entertainment, advertisement — capturing their consumption, behavioural patterns and mindspace, could prove to be a goldmine for the transporter as it looks to spruce up its earnings.

Huge employee base The Railways also has a huge employee base, comprising about 1.3 million staff. Keeping all of them motivated towards a single motto and vision is a challenge, but they are also the ones that work as foot soldiers, working along the tracks and stations, which are spread across the length and breadth of the country. As the railways reaches out to newer points — reaching nooks and corners in the North East and expanding its network in Jammu and Kashmir — it is looking to fill in over 60,000 of foot soldiers on the ground, said a government source.

Simultaneously, it is adopting advanced technologies — such as digitisation, signalling, modernising stations through private participation — which will lower the need for staff in certain pockets.

Like in other services, balancing and re-skilling staff during the transition time to a modern service provision organisation may be another challenge.

The Railways has grand plans to garner 50 per cent share of total traffic moved in the country. As it spends with an aim to overhaul infrastructure, it will meet the government’s aim of sprucing up demand and fuelling GDP growth. It has started building new tracks that can serve passengers at high speed, while adopting faster electrification and signalling.

Given that it is a huge consumer of steel, cement, fuel, and several such products, it is also looking to widen the vendor pool. Most recently, it has also digitised its research and design standard setting organisation’s vendor registration process, and fixed time- based response limits for people. Re-jigging parameters for modernising stations — changing them from only earnings to a mix of earnings and passenger footfalls — will be areas where passengers are likely to feel the change. This will ensure investment in passenger facilities even in stations where earnings are not high.To make clean food available, it is taking steps such as making available ready-to-eat and pre-cooked meals. Passengers also have many options to order wider variety of food, although the demand for simple, value-for money servings made available by the Indian Railways has not dwindled.

Finally, to make available clean toilets, while we need some help from the railways, the organisation also needs some effort from all its passengers. Sprucing up enough earnings for all of these, and mopping up resources will not be a challenge, if the government extends it sovereign backing to the Railways.

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