New Delhi: Two accidents within a span of few hours in which at least 66 people have been killed and over 300 injured once again expose the widely held belief that Indian Railways is not on the right track. With no full-time railway minister since May 2011 and several key posts in the organisation vacant, tragedies like the Howrah-Kalka Mail derailment and Guwahati-Puri Express crash were just waiting to happen.
The last two decades have seen the Railways portfolio being one of the most sought after one as it gives the minister a change to play to the gallery, indulge in populist measures and is seen as the ideal tool to cultivate a votebank. The rot in the Railways start from the very top and is the result of successive ministers using the Railways as a milch cow to further their political ambitions.
Trains have been introduced on the overused tracks with impunity without any clear cut strategy to develop the related infrastructure, passenger rates have not increased to keep pace with the inflation and new projects have been giving the green signal without much thought to their feasibility. All these have been done with the singular aim of using the Railways as a political tool.
Shirt-sighted policies have resulted in security and safety becoming the biggest casualties and these deficiencies have become more glaring after Trinamool Congress chief and current West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee virtually moved the Railways headquarters to Kolkata to pursue her dream of unseating the Left Front from power in the state.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is currently handling the Railways Ministry along with three ministers of state KH Muniappa, Bharatsinh Solanki and Mukul Roy. Apart from Railways, Roy is also the Minister of State in the Ministry of Shipping.
Singh also pulled up Roy, who chose not to go to accident sites, and directed him to visit Kamrup district in Assam where an improvised explosive device was used to trigger the blast that led to the derailment of the Guwahati-Puri Express on Sunday night.
Reports claim that Roy was being guided by Mamata following the train accidents. The West Bengal Chief Minister, who is keen that the Railways Ministry remains with her party, reportedly directed Roy to ensure that the relief train for the Kalka Mail accident site from Howrah left on time.
Roy defended not visiting the accident sites with a bizarre explanation that there was no direction from the Prime Minister.
"All high railway officials and ministry have taken the decision. The Prime Minister is the Minister of the Railways now. We have got 3 MoS. I am one of them, and it is the decision of the ministry who will visit (the sites)," Roy, who is in Kolkata, had said in his defence after he had initially refused to go the accident sight in Assam saying he wasn't asked by the Prime Minister.
He also reportedly said that he was about 1000 km from the accident site and was just a Minister of State and not the Railways Minister. He is reportedly upset at not being upgraded to the post of a Cabinet Minister incharge of Railways.
Roy's indifference only exacerbates the narrow vision that people handling the Railways Ministry have shown.
Mamata's track record had not been great as the Railways Minister. She even used to skip several key Cabinet meetings preoccupied as she was with West Bengal politics. For her Railways was just a stepping stone to realise her dream of becoming the chief minister of the state.
Around 2 lakh posts are vacant in the Railways which include over 1 lakh safety-related jobs endangering the safety of trains even though the organisation is the biggest employer in India and the fourth largest the world over with more than 15 lakh employees.
Several key positions in the Railways like Member Traffic and Member Electrical are lying vacant. Vacancies at the level of general manager of various zones have also not been fully filled.
Even the Comptroller and Auditor General has strongly indicted the Railways Ministry for missing out on targets related to safety. The CAG report 2010-2011 says that Indian Railways could not achieve Phase I target of corporate safety plan and the action.
The report also points out that the Research Design and Standards Organisation of the Railways is behind schedule in developing new technologies that could reduce risk to railway users. Targets fixed for reduction in various defects on tracks, wagons, overhead equipments have also not been achieved in various railway zones.
Railways has failed to provide improved facilities for the running staff, modernisation and upgradation of training facilities. The report also reveals that the Railways has not been not able to fill all the safety category staff vacancies.
With no long-term plan and short-sighted ministers, the future does not seem to be too bright for the Indian Railways.
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