RailFans - once you meet them, friends for life

Very rightly said sir, intentions appear to be good from top level (esp PM & RM). But the end result shall depend on how the intentions are actually implemented by Rly management and employees.
Let us try to go deep in to IR problems. I have painstakingly tried to do it, with a hope that esteemed IRI friends will devote their valuable time reading it. (please excuse for typo error, if any)
About present working of IR, my most reliable feedback, that came from a friend at middle level management who was...
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associated with DalliRajhara- Raoghat newline project (highly profitable one for IR), is exciting. He told me how the work on the project has been sped up and how officials work over time (like never before) so that work on the project could be sped up and they can give a respectable feedback when next interaction on the project is due with PMO/RB. This is a much better situation than before but not up to the desired level. It will take some time, when timely working become a habit of every IR employee/ executive, and no drastic chasing shall be required at any level, then we can say a great job has been accomplished. IR officials, who have experience of decades in rly operation know best how to improve it. RMs only need to give them directions and targets, so that IR can work the best in the interest of boosting Indian Economy and give a competitive, convenient & efficient railway services to the public (passenger) and industries(freight) alike.
To understand the real situation we have to detach ourselves from the feeling/ liking for IR (which we IR fans are invariably addicted to), and to look at a larger national scenario/ environment in which IR is currently operating, without any bias.
DELEGATION OF POWERS/ RESTRUCTURING/ MONITORING
MR, RB earlier had a lot of financial powers (excessively centralised), Now MR has delegated most of its financial powers (tenders etc). Power has been decentralized and GMs & DRMs are biggest beneficiaries. DRMs & GMs are key officials (esp DRMs) who actually manage the show of IR at grass root level. Earlier they had limited decision making powers and had to wait for approval/clearance of higher authorities for taking/implementing decisions pertaining to commercial/financial/operational activities like train augmentation & other spot decisions which used to get delayed. For example: many time rakes remained idle even during the peak season because coach augmentation/new train could not be operationalized for want of timely clearance from higher officials/RB. Small passenger amenities proposals got delayed due to clearance, there by killing their mojo for improvement/excellence. The “chalta hai” attitude prevailed.
Now they are being facilitated with more authority and resources needed to effectively fulfil their responsibilities and had been given much tougher targets to achieve, like ones related to additional freight/ passenger traffic/revenue, safety, capacity augmentation project completion etc. so as to achieve the vision of MR. Those officials who want to excel, now have much better opportunity and resources to do so. They are motivated to do so by their newly designed report cards, upon which their career/ promotion depends. For. Example SECR officials earlier were concerned about improving freight operations only and did not bothered about improving passenger services. In new report card, there are some marks for increase in passenger traffic/revenue also, and to get those marks the SECR GM/DRMs cannot ignore passenger services also else their colleagues of other zones/divisions will get more marks and hence the coveted promotion. Large number of special trains originating from SECR) as against almost none earlier) in last few months bear testimony to this. This was about initiatives for better management.
Now MR is doing his real job i.e. monitoring the key top officials to achieve targets of Indian railway which in turn are in line with the prime ministers vision of making Indian Railway a prime mover of Indian Economy, not just a means of transportation of people and freight. The key performing Areas of GMs/ DRMs had been designed accordingly.
Various directorates in RB which were earlier hot beds of departmental-ism in IR are now being reorganized in line with the visions of PM & RM. These are supposed to do continuous monitoring of all the zones. Earlier the directorates were based on the disciplines of specialization like engineering (Civil), Electrical, Mechanical, traffic, finance etc. and were working in their own interests rather than the interest of IR. Now the directorates are being reorganized in line with the functions of railway operation so that they shed their departmental (discipline oriented) attitude and start working in unison towards the organizational goals of IR. Engg. Directorate used to bull doze capacity augmentation projects in favour of doubling/tripling which could have been achieved quickly and at lesser cost by automatic signaling, because signaling directorate was relatively weaker. Now both shall work together under to achieve a common goal under the single directorate called infrastructure and the tussle shall end. Infrastructure directorate shall now combine civil & telecom engineers for a common purpose rather than stocking the dreaded departmentalism. Similarly mechanical & electrical had been merged as traction directorate and tussle of diesel or electrification shall end.
TWITTER THE WONDERFUL TOOL
Twitter activity is an effective and successful interface of IR with common travelers in line with policy of Central Govt. It is an exercise to provide on-board on-line help some passengers in urgency. Twitter also help in controlling malpractices done by some of the travelling rly staff. It is meant to win public confidence that the Govt actually works and cares for people and hence handled by politicians i.e. RMs. Since twitter handle has become a tool to check corrupt practices as well, hence sectional/departmental heads i.e. DRMs/GMs are also compulsorily made part of it by RM.
Actual financial condition of IR is dependent on how efficiently they operate trains, how efficiently they generate revenue and how efficiently they use their resources and implement the modernisation & capacity augmentation projects etc. This exactly is responsibility of IR officials like GMs, DRMs and their subordinates, hence they do not give as much time to twitter as RM give.
STATUS OF IR PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE
IR has lost its share of national traffic (Freight 70% to 30%, Passenger 75%-15%) to inherently energy/ cost/ environment inefficient but better managed road sector in last 60-70 years and is continuously loosing because of under investment, which is primarily an outcome of the decades of financially imprudent ways of working of IR. As a result logistics cost of our country is ver high at about 14 % of GDP whereas international benchmark is about 8-10%. If we can bring it down by 3% to a level of say 11%, India could save 3% of GDP which is above 4 lac crore Rs per annum! Indian goods shall be much more competitive in global markets, our foreign trade, our industry/agriculture etc and hence employment generation shall get a tremendous fillip. In order to reduce the logistics cost, road sector share has to come down and railway share has to be doubled, inland water ways, coastal shipping has to be developed to carry more traffic.
If in-spite of huge inherent advantages of energy efficiency & economies of scale, the monopolistic IR is spending 68% of its cost on salary/pension. And that too in-spite of having one of the highest freight fares in the world, charging much more to ac class passengers than equivalent Volvo bus (and charging much less than the equivalent non-ac bus). Still IR is struggling to survive, expand and fulfil market demand. The indications are clear, that IR is consuming too much resources in their operation. i.e. a grossly inefficient working. Niti Ayog too come to the same conclusion.
Something has to be done to avoid this non-stop slide of IRlys, which otherwise is moving on the path of self-destruction i.e. continuously losing its market share. Today it is about 25% what will be scenario after 2 decades if current affairs continue for next 20 years?? This a billion dollar question which needs to be addressed to.
With GDP growth of India mostly hovering around 7-8% p.a., it will quadruple in next 20 years. In India, growth elasticity for transport is 1.25, so after 20 years, transport requirement shall be 5 times of today. In last five years IR freight traffic has grown @ 3.8% p.a. only from 922 to 1107 Mi. Tones (from 2010-11 to 2015-16). After 20years, the traffic shall only double at this rate to about 2200 MiT, and its share shall fall down from current 25% to mere 10%. Similar drop is there in share of passenger traffic of IR as well. In this way, IR shall be gradually relegated to irrelevance for Indian Economy, like Pakistan Railway had been.
Most of the additional traffic generated by growing Indian Economy had been lapped up by the road sector and IR is happy with marginal increments. The trend is continuing unabated. Freight traffic share of IR at national level – 1951-89% to 2016-25% to 2036-10%, is a present fact/ future indication which no economist as well as IR fan shall like. Good news is, there is a silver line for IR i.e. DFC network (ifs fully developed) may come to the rescue of IR.
MERGER OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRIES IMPROVE NATTIONAL LOGISTICS
Merger of transportation ministries is also intended to avoid wastage of resources due to duplication of infrastructure and make unified transport policy for India to reduce logistic cost and to boost Indian Economy. Today we have separate & non-coherent policies for road/ rail/ shipping/ aviation guided/made by different ministers with an aim to get maximum allocation & achieve maximum expansion for his/her ministry. The more heavy weight/efficient/ active minister manage to get more allocation of resources from national kitty, which is often detrimental to National Economy. Management of organisation/implementation shall be done by the respective organisations as before, only the vision and broad policies shall be from the unified ministry instead of separate ministries. At grass root level working/ management no change is intended, but the direction from top shall change so that the various transport organisations coherently work in the same direction under a unified transport policy in the interest of Indian economy.
THREAT- CORRUPTION , MORE INTERNAL FOCUS INSENSITIVE To market conditions
Corruption is a big threat and can kill any commercial organization. The years of excessive political interference has badly affected the work ethics especially the ones having direct interaction with them. Political bosses often don’t know the adverse consequences of a financially imprudent decision in detail, but the well qualified & experienced IR management do understand. It is also most painful if suce decisions are taken under compulsion.
It is also a fact that IR have notorious distinction of highest number of vigilance complaints pertaining to corruption is received by CVC/CBI Rlys-12394 nos. with All banks being distant second with 5363 complaints. This is an indication, that an overhaul is necessary especially sensitive deptts of IR which are more prone to corruption, by bringing in transparency and strict monitoring and suitable punishments. This is very sensitive issue which need to be handled deftly so as to ensure that the genuine interests of IR employees, Indian Citizens and Indian Economy are taken care of.
THREAT-FOCUSS ON CUSTOMERS/ MARKET
At the time of independence, industrial production and employment generation was very low and IR, public sector units were also thought of as a means to generate jobs and kick start industrial development of nation. Customers and marketing was never a focus, as the market was “sellers market” as industrial products and services available were too short of the prevailing demand. So their working was centered toward employees welfare and production.
With the opening up of Indian economy in last 3 decades, the industry/ infrastructure sectors like telecom, power, steel, petroleum, aviation, road, shipping etc has been opened to private sector and a drastic improvement in the performance of most of these sectors, especially in working practices, technological/financial performance, customer satisfaction & Govt organizations/ PSUs have improved their working practices and learned to compete with pvt. sector. The same has not happened in railways sector. IR still enjoys monopoly and as a result it works with more focus on internal issues with employee centered approach, instead of having due external focus (market/ environment) with customer oriented approach.
RAY OF HOPE
It will take a lot of efforts and time to bring about a positive change in working (esp. decision making) of IR. Total review and overhaul of railway operating practices (decision making/ implementation) is needed. Optimum use of technology and financial prudence etc. are required for this purpose, in order to ensure that IR becomes an efficient and dynamic organization. Persons directly connected with physical running of trains, like operation & maintenance of trains are like loco pilots/guards, infrastructure track/ bridge/ tunnel/ electrification/ rolling stock operation & maintenance staff are doing the physically most demanding job and like heart of the body (IR). The brain (decision making) needs to function properly and control the hands/legs (commercial/finance) to function properly so that the 24x7 blood pumped by the heart does not goes in vain.
First time regaining of the lost traffic share is being so seriously talked about and aimed at by RM/IR. What end results the dynamic decisions of MR bring, depends mainly on how effectively he can manage the political scenario, IR unions, Officers Associations, the huge IR work force etc to adapt to the changes demanded by Indian Economy/ people from IR.
We can only hope & pray, that the historical steps pertaining to IR like, organizational structure changes, changes in management hierarchy, budget merger, use of online means to serve & connect with IR passengers, huge capacity augmentation projects, speeding up, DFCs etc bring about the much needed positive changes for IR. All the best wishes to Mr. Prabhu and his team.
I dream of IR to be a financially healthy orgn. and railways to carry at least 50% of national traffic after 10-15years. And logistics cost of India come down to 10% or below. Consequently IR regain its lost glory, Indian Economy is on the fast track with elimination/ reduction of poverty and unemployment.