Kanpur Rail Mishap: There Are No Checks & Balances in the Railways

As recommended by two high-powered panels, Indian railways needs a thorough overhaul, writes Dinesh Trivedi.

Former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi on MP Tragedy

• The Kakodkar panel and the Pitroda panel produced an amazing report in 2012 on how to fix safety and modernisation
• Madhya Pradesh accident is a wake-up call that there has to be a system in place to inspect vulnerable locations
• If India is capable of executing a Chandrayaan mission then it should certainly be competent to face any eventuality

Yet another avoidable train accident which took place in Madhya Pradesh, involving derailment of the Kamayani Express and Janta Express, in very quick succession around the same spot. According to latest reports, the death toll stands at 30 while several were injured and some still missing. Unfortunately, these are symptoms of a deep-rooted disease in the Indian railways system.

Immediately after taking oath as Railway Minister on 13 July 2011, I went straight to the Delhi airport where an IAF special plane was waiting to take me to Kanpur, as a horrible accident had taken place at Fatehpur on 10 July. Seventy unfortunate passengers lost their lives. I can never ever forget that scene which sent chills down my spine when I faced not only the injured but also family members of the deceased passengers. At that moment, I took a vow that as long as I remained the minister, I would do whatever it took to fix the railways so that never again would the country have to witness such accidents.

Two Committees

My priority was safety, safety and safety.I had asked myself who the best person(s) could be to guide me in addressing and fixing this issue of safety ailing the railways ever since it came into being. My search took me to Dr Kasturi Rangan as I felt that as a space scientist he would have zero tolerance as far as safety protocols were concerned. I requested him to help me. The other name which came to my mind was of Dr Anil Kakodkar, who as a top-notch nuclear scientist too would have zero tolerance in terms of safety protocols.

The next step was to modernise the railways as safety and modernisation go hand in hand. So I requested my friend Sam Pitroda to head a committee on modernisation of the railways. Two committees were formed: one on safety, headed by Kakodkar and another on modernisation,headed by Pitroda. Both committees had the most eminent members, experts in their various fields, duly assisted by the railways’ top management. The committees worked tirelessly and produced an amazing report on how to fix safety and modernisation. I was given a prescription which I tried implementing through my budget proposals of 2012-13. The rest is history.

Lethargic Organisation

Over three years have passed, but till today the Railway Board is still in “considering the committee report” mode. This speaks volumes about the lack of priorities. The blame squarely rests at the topmost political system of successive governments as I am afraid theIndian political class has not understood the strength of the railways, which is a robust organisation which can easily add 2-3% to the GDP.

The accident in Madhya Pradesh is being blamed on nature (flash floods). In such a huge railway network of more than70,000 route kilometres, there are many bridges, culverts, dams and rivers and during monsoon, floods, rains, landslides are expected and there certainly has to be a system in place, which the railways does have, to inspect each and every vulnerable location to ensure an incident/accident-free, safe travel. But it is quite obvious, somewhere, someone, has let the system down; which means there are no checks and balances.

One of the reasons for this situation is the rail force which, otherwise competent, is totally demoralised as it has seen a change of as many as six ministers in a span of three years, and the policy has been changed six times. What is ailing the railways is that it is a minister-oriented and not systems-oriented organisation where the minister can override the system but the system cannot override the minister even where safety is concerned.

Scarce Resources

The railways require about Rs 40-50,000crore annually to replace old assets be it tracks, signalling systems,locomotives, rolling stocks or reinforcing bridges, culverts, underpasses, etc.But they do not have enough resources to replace worn-out assets. Instead of the financial requirement, the depreciation figure is an average Rs 6,000 crore.In other words, they do not have enough money to allocate either for depreciation, development or debt servicing, along with dividend payments to the exchequer which in itself is a very sad commentary.

In layman’s language, to give an example,if your car is required to have its tires changed periodically and if you donot have funds to do so, then you are risking yourself and the passengers in the car knowing that it is not safe. Similarly we run our railway system knowing fully well that at some places it is not 100% safe as the required replacement of old assets, which is a continuous process, does not take place on time.

Coming back to this unfortunate accident, I am not sure whether the culvert or the bridge required some kind of reinforcement to withstand the force of the so-called flash floods. In the monsoon, such situations will always occur and if India is capable of executing a Chandrayaan mission then it should certainly be competent enough to have a strong system in place to face any eventuality, or at least a warning system of some kind that could have averted the mishap. Precious lives could have been saved.

In these modern times, trains run under the ocean, through mountains; to blame nature for this avoidable accident is very unfortunate. I do hope and pray that this would be yet another wake-up call for Indian railways and hopefully the Kakodkar and Pitroda committee reports would get implemented.

(The writer, a Trinamool Congress MP, is a former railway minister)

(This article has been republished from The Quint’s archives in wake of the Indore-Patna Express’ derailment. It was originally published on 6 August 2015.)