Of the 803 serious accidents (the minor ones run into thousands) between 2009-10 and 2014-15, 373 were due to derailments. In the recent past too, most major accidents were due to derailment. The accident of the Indore-Patna Express near Kanpur Dehat on 20 November 2016 which killed 150 people and injured many was again, it appears, due to derailment notwithstanding the suspicion of sabotage by elements from across the border.

There is no denying the fact that railway tracks are in bad shape and all such accidents are taking place, as a senior U.P Railway Police Officer said the other day in the context of the Indore Patna Express mishap, “due to fatigue of railway tracks”. A month after this accident, 15 bogies of the Sealdah-Ajmer Express derailed near Kanpur. In January this year, a passenger train derailed in Kuneru (Andhra Pradesh) killing at least 41 people and injuring 68.

The government which took charge in the country in 2014 had big plans for the Railways. Unfortunately, priorities got misplaced. The accidents on August 5 2015 of the Kamayani Express and of the Janta Express between Khirkiya and Bhirangi in Harda, Madhya Pradesh killing 25 people and injuring many and on March 20 that year of the Dehradun-Varanasi Janta Express due to derailment near Rae Baraeli killing 39 and injuring 150 should have made the railway administration realise what their immediate task was.

Not the bullet train, not demolishing historical harmless practices like a separate Railway Budget  but to attend to overdue replacement of track and rolling stock  by infusing massive funds and doing the work on war footing.

Replacement of worn out track and induction of new locos, coaches and wagons suffered because finances were not in robust shape. With earnings down and expenditure up, the first rescue operation for the sick organization was to restore its financial health by consulting experts if needed.

Instead we got down to restructuring this behemoth which had been delivering in spite of the neglect in its maintenance. A committee was appointed in September 2014 to advise on restructuring. It gave its report in June 2015. Of the nine members of the committee only one   knew the system well, having retired from the railways as Financial Commissioner. The rest had to first understand the organization and its vast operations before pinpointing what was wrong and suggesting what kind of restructuring would get better results.

The Committee was not given enough time to do so. Its recommendations are so radical that if implemented these are going to demolish a well-tried system and bring about chaos. Instead of reform we seem to have got on the path of derailing a system on the basis of these experts’ advice. The railway ministry is implementing the recommendations of this committee without properly examining implications and discussing them with the real experts in railway working.
Merger of Railway Budget with the General Budget was one such recommendation. Doing away with a practice in existence for more than 90 years has done no good to the railways. It has diluted functional autonomy and financial independence in spite of assurances to the contrary.

Listing of three railway PSUs on the stock exchange was announced by the Finance Minister while presenting the General Budget without consulting the Railway Ministry. Withdrawal of service charge on e-tickets booked through Indian Railway Catering and Tourist Corporation (IRCTC) has put the corporation in a fix as its profit hinges upon that. This again was without the knowledge of Railway Board.

Contradictions abound in approaches being taken on several fronts. On one side General Managers have been delegated immense powers in matters of procurement. On the other hand Railways’ autonomy and independent handling of finances, which was the objective behind separation of railway finances and hence a separate Budget, has been given a death blow.

The Finance ministry has also asked the railways to pass on dividend from their PSUs to them. This dividend of nearly Rs 850 crore was a part of railway revenue. Other implications of this merger adopted in a hurry will be seen in a due course. The missing Budget papers – like the Pink Book listing Works Programmes, the Statement of Account along with the Minister’s speech – leave the railway managers without goalposts for the year.

The only benefit envisaged by this merger was to free the railways from being treated by successive railway ministers as their fief for announcing schemes in their home states at the cost of other needs. This could have been achieved by vetting the budget proposals at the highest level. In any case under the strong leadership of the present Prime Minister no Railway minister would have done so.

Everything from the past is not bad. The Chairman of the Committee on Restructuring has himself admitted after studying the history of Indian Railways and which inspired him to come up with a book that “we cannot delink present from the past and that 19th century issues still hold relevance today”. Unfortunately this discovery was made by him after he had presented the report. I wish he had read the history of the Railways in order to write a book before outlining the recommendations in the report.

Another recommendation of the committee which if implemented would have disastrous consequences without any benefit is to merge all Group A services into one single entity. The objective is to end the silo mentality of each department. Each of the existing eight Group A services (four of which form part of Civil Services Exam held by UPSC) has a distinct role. The Indian Railway Traffic service is responsible for operating the network as well for marketing. The Personnel Service handles personnel management of the 1.3 million plus work force. The Indian Railway Accounts service is the watchdog of Railway finances, stock verification, vetting all proposals from the return on expenditure angle.

Civil Engineers are responsible for construction and maintenance of railway buildings and track, the mechanical engineers are required for production and repairs of locos, wagons and coaches and the electrical engineers for traction. Combining all services into one Railway service will not only mess up the careers of thousands of officers but also result in messing up the whole system. 

The silo mentality which this recommendation proposes to eliminate can be taken care of by a simple solution – of having the Chairman of the Railway Board from outside. He could be a man from a non-Railway service or someone from the corporate sector who can address the overall interests of the system and prevent a departmental approach. The Railway minister himself can prevent promotion of one department at the cost of others.Combining all services into one Railway service is neither feasible nor desirable. It is like making one service out of the IAS, IPS, IFS and other Central services to curb complaints against the domination of one service and rivalry among them. It is also not in the interest of the railways to take away the Railway Protection Force from them and keep it under Home ministry. Railways need a dedicated apparatus for safety of goods they transport as also the security of 3 crore passengers they move every day.

Similarly, the railways need a separate medical department for their workers and to take care of emergencies in accidents. Abolishing the medical department and moving it to the Health ministry will be a body blow not only to the health needs of railway employees but will also make services under the Central Government Health Scheme unmanageable. Revamping in this manner is a destructive approach.

One major harm done to the railways under the present dispensation is diluting the role of Financial Commissioner and that of the Finance department of which he is the head. When the post came into existence in 1924 with separation of railway finances from general finances his role as envisaged was superior to that of the Chief  Commissioner (as the Chairman, Railway Board was known then) as well to other Members called Commissioners then. The Board could not ignore his advice; not even the Railway Minister could.

In case of difference of opinion with the Railway Minister he could go to the Finance Minister to make his opinion binding since he also represented the Finance ministry. This was an ex-cadre post and could be filled by an officer from any other service. With the post becoming a cadre post of the Indian Railway Accounts service after the Fifth Pay Commission an officer of this service fills that post. Considering the importance, however, of the post besides seniority, the merit plus at least one-year service left criteria were taken into account in selection.

Now these principles have been given up and the post is filled by the senior-most person of the service. As a result, for the past two years there has been a new Financial Commissioner after every few months. There appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaken the institution and the service itself. Maybe because they are not accepting some wild plans costing money without tangible benefits.

All this does not augur well for the Railways. Under pressure from the PM, the Railways want to show that they are moving on many fronts. There are plans for high-speed trains, for doing a China in connecting Dhaka with Istanbul for carrying freight, for running a train between Kathmandu and Kolkata and Delhi. All that is fine and Indian Railways do have the capability to execute such projects.

But the immediate concern should be to strengthen the system and not tinker with it, to equip the manpower to face challenges before them in transporting millions of people and millions of tons of goods from one corner of the country to another safely rather than destroy a well-established system and replace it with untried management ideas of theorists.

The writer is former Additional Secretary Govt. of India and former Executive Director, Finance Railway Board.