A question encountered frequently is: While the announcements made by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways are largely being met with matching deliveries, why is the same not the case with the Ministry of Railways? Big ticket announcements are made and forgotten and soon it is time to move to the next big one. Here are two examples.

The Ministry declared plans to design and manufacture 25 sets of Vande Bharat version of Freight EMU to be run at 160 kmph at a cost of ₹60 crore per set, setting aside budget for the same last year.

The project was ill-conceived as even passenger Vande Bharat cannot run at 160 kmph operating speed due to inadequacies of ground infrastructure, absence of feasible clientele and above all, handling infrastructure of such a train was a grey area. It is no wonder that the project is in cold storage.

Station development

The saga of redevelopment of stations is one of continuous procrastination, and in 15 years only three stations were completed. In September last year, the Railways once again announced three redevelopment projects for New Delhi, CST Mumbai and Ahmedabad stations with great fanfare.

These projects were derailed once again with the bidding process getting cancelled recently for New Delhi and Ahmedabad stations.

Meanwhile, a flurry of announcements continue regarding Vande Bharat variants, the sleeper version to replace Rajdhanis which should have been a reality long back, Vande Metro, Vande Suburban and so on. The financial bids for the Aluminium Vande Bharat, which could be a game-changer, languishes in the Ministry.

Then came a major announcement that the Railways is firming up a concrete plan to increase the maximum speed of Vande Bharat to 240 kmph on a dedicated track and a tender would be floated shortly to manufacture Vande Bharat trainsets which can run at this maximum speed.

Since the existing Vande Bharat is not run at even 160 kmph except in one section, the obvious reactions were of disbelief and a resignation to the culture of hype one is so familiar with. There were news reports that ICF would tender for manufacturing of 200 more Vande Bharat trains including a part for Standard Gauge tracks.

While the tender specifications are presumably under preparation, the question to be asked is how to extract good value from this. The trigger was that government is firm in its belief that huge capex on rail infrastructure is good for the economy and Railways has shown the boldness to decide large rolling stock tenders since last year.

Speed drive

While the main component of the tender could well be incremental in nature for Aluminium trains in the speed range 160- 200 kmph, it was Standard Gauge and 240 kmph that sparked curiosity for two reasons; (i) In spite of having developed Vande Bharat, India cannot be a global leader unless it has capability to deliver Vande Bharat in Standard gauge, the gauge which is the norm in all developed countries and increasingly in medium-income countries for new lines; (ii) We have a Standard Gauge 350 kmph High-Speed line coming up between Mumbai and Ahmedabad which would have Japanese trains, Indian trains assembled in India with Japanese components.

It does offer Railways an excellent opportunity to challenge Integral Coach Factory (ICF), the designer and manufacturer of Vande Bharat, and associated Indian rail industry to design and build a 245 kmph train to run on this High-Speed line; they have the capability and they can attempt this on their own, with the help of a design consultant.

While the pride of an ‘Indian’ High-speed train running alongside Japanese ones would be immeasurable, a committed effort to develop it would be more significant as that would help India claim its rightful place as global rolling stock designer and manufacturer.

The writer is Retd. GM, Indian Railways and part of the first Train 18/Vande Bharat team

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