New Delhi: Ahead of Minister Dinesh Trivedi's first Railway Budget on March 14, a high-level panel has advised focus on safety issues, rather than the populist practice of introducing new trains, saying the system was "bereft" of spare capacity.
"No new trains should be introduced without adding adequate capacity for operation and maintenance," said the high-level panel on safety headed by former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar in its report submitted to the ministry recently. The panel has also suggested adequate funding for such projects, estimated at Rs.5,000 crore over the next five years, and said without that the nextwork is put to safety risks.
Former Railway Board chairman R.K. Singh supported. "The railways must put a moratorium on new trains for the next few years till its finances shore up," he said. "The focus should be on adding track length and upgrading maintenance and passenger carrying capacity as lack of it affects safety," Singh told IANS.
Indian Railway is the world's largest under a single management with a network of 64,000 route kilometres that carries 20 million passengers per day.
According to the Kakodkar panel, there has been a mushrooming of growth in new trains on an already "insufficient" rail infrastructure in the country during the past decade. The situation worsened in the last five years during which over 500 new trains were added, frequencies of several existing trains were increased and more coaches added. This has a bearing on safety.
According to the report, such a massive addition of passenger trains every year without giving it a serious thought -- done mainly due to political considerations -- has severe implications on safety preparedness of the railways.
The report said several routes have severe constraints on maintenance and safety and there is neither a mechanism to evaluate safety risk of such uncoordinated measures, nor has any effort been made to improve the worsening condition.
But another former Railway Board chairman J.P. Batra had a different view on the Kakodkar panel's suggestion and said the recommendations were "theoretically correct, but not practical" due to the role played by Indian Railways.
"India is a country of over a billion people. The railways will have to announce some new trains, keeping in mind their expectations of these people," Batra told IANS.
Already walking a tightrope in managing a cash-strapped railway system, which is staring at an earnings shortfall of Rs.7,000 crore, experts said there were few options before Minister Trivedi, especially since his Trinamool Congress is opposed to fare hikes.
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