New Delhi: India’s next railway minister will find her hands full, as the national transporter aims to improve the punctuality and safety of train operations, and to dramatically improve the quality of passenger amenities.

With the Modi 2.0 regime set to begin, there are other major structural reforms that await the new incumbent at Rail Bhawan.

The much-awaited Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) – a UPA-era project to reduce travel time for both passenger and goods trains on the country’s most congested routes – has missed several deadlines during the Modi government’s tenure. It has yet to be operational.

Other methods of cutting down on travel time, through the introduction of semi-high-speed trains on dedicated tracks, remain only promises.

Experts also believe that with the NDA-III’s massive mandate, it could finally push through administrative reform like setting up a Rail Development Authority (RDA), and appointing top-level positions on the basis of merit and not seniority.

Also read: Top Posts in Railways Lie Vacant, Even as Policy Reform Slows Down

Vacancies exist at the level of divisional railway manager (DRM) and general manager (GM), as well as board members.

"Railways has suffered for not putting the right people in the right places because seniority is the overriding criteria," a senior railway ministry official told this correspondent on the condition of anonymity. "As a result there are not many high performing GMs or DRMs."

Other officials The Wire spoke to emphasised that future top-level postings should be done through a ‘positive act of selection’, as recommended by the Sridharan committee. The one-man panel in 2014 stated that the overriding criteria for top-level appointments should be performance and not seniority.

Policy reform slowdown

Though cabinet approved a proposal for the railways to give up some regulatory functions and form an independent RDA in 2017 – to help the public transporter take decisions on pricing of services, consumer interests, generating revenue and competition – the ministry is yet to actually take any concrete steps in this direction.

Though mostly isolated from the political and corporate pressure seen in other government departments, many of the operational metrics of the railways have continued to lag.

For instance, in mid-2018, the transporter’s punctuality rate dropped from 80% to 65%, implying that nearly 30% of India’s trains don’t run on time. It improved slightly to 69% earlier this year.  

Infrastructure developments haven’t paid off either. For instance, although the railways has introduced the vaunted Vande Bharat Express – equipped to run at 180 kmph – the underlying tracks are simply not ready for that speed.

The ministry’s station development project needs to be expedited to provide better amenities to travelers.

The DFC, which was expected to give a boost to rail infrastructure worth Rs 81,459 crore, had received approval from the Union cabinet in 2006, but progress is at a snail's pace.

While the Eastern DFC covers a distance of 1,856 km from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni, near Kolkata, passing through UP, Bihar, Haryana, and Jharkhand, the Western DFC will cover 1,504 km from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust near Navi Mumbai to Dadri in UP, passing through Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Phulera and Rewari.

Also read: Advance Earnings From Big Freight Players Helps Railways Tide Over Operating Ratio Crisis

Financially, the railways is also struggling with growing staff and pension costs since the Seventh Pay Commission, without significantly increased earnings.

In April 2019, The Wire reported how the railways needed to engage in financial engineering to help tide over its operating ratio crisis.

Senior officials say that there is a need for a plan to increase revenue through various measures in both passenger and goods sectors. Innovative measures are required to attract passengers from road and air services.

Coal, steel, cement and petroleum products companies who move their goods by rail continue to provide the railways with two-thirds of its earnings. The transporter, therefore, also needs to come out with policies to hold on to its dwindling share in freight movement.

Arun Kumar Das is a senior journalist and can be contacted at akdas2005@gmail.com

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