Railways needs redemption

For the Indian Railways, the appointment of former Shiv Sena leader Suresh Prabhu- who was expelled from his party but was greeted by the BJP with a ministerial berth as the Railways Minister- the auditor turned politico was a better choice, given the past record when coalition partner satraps from the State ruled and ruined the arterial mode of transport. True to his salt, Prabhu did not refrain from undertaking a thorough overhaul of the existing business as usual approach and co-opted external agencies and institutions for funding its vast infrastructure development projects and programmes of a humongous order of eight lakh crore of rupees spread over a five-year span. How far his efforts in this direction would pan out would be known only after the new projects are through from the drawing board before long.

Meanwhile, the rail users, be they individuals as passengers or a set of industries transporting their goods and wares, remain silent and captive victims to the deteriorating performance of the railways, as there is no palpable awareness to mend matters and serve the users in any manner. This is borne out by the dismal findings of the latest audit report for the year 2015-16 by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) that was tabled in the ongoing monsoon session of the Parliament. Even as 2015-16 marked the railways announcing mammoth outlays to attract institutional, private and State governments' funding for its ambitious projects, the situation on the ground in terms of services provided to users remained far from satisfactory and at worst nothing to gloat over for the monopoly transport behemoth that had been straddling the domestic space from pre-Independent days.

In its report, the CAG while commenting on the parcel business of the IR said the rail authorities recognised the need to enhance the parcel business and reposition it as a separate line of activity rather than an extension of its passenger transportation services. Yet, it said, they did not "undertake adequate steps to put in place the infrastructure and other institutional arrangements for improvement in parcel services." As a result, parcel services continue to be non-core activity sans any specific stress on augmentation and improvement in the capacity of infrastructure or quality of service. Thus, even as computerisation of parcel service's commenced way back in 2005-06, this was yet to be completed on a large number of locations. Besides, adequate steps for security monitoring and screening of the parcels were not available as seen at the selected parcel depots by the audit team, it said.

Stating that response for booking of leased parcel traffic through brake vans as well as parcel vans was inadequate, the report said that while offers received were far less than space offered on a lease, railways did not allot parcel vans in 65 per cent of the cases. As such, leasing space remained grossly unutilised; it said adding that leased traffic services suffered from a lack of customer friendliness and from maladies like delays in internal processes and deficiencies in decision-making. For leasing of parcel space, a delay of up to 240 days in finalisation of tenders by zonal railways was noticed. Customers had to cancel indents for parcel vans due to non-supply by railway administration and in many cases, parcel vans were declared "sick after being loaded." A transport system that aspired to be the swiftest and most eco-friendly can ill-afford to lose its image on flimsy alibis like vans being sick as no business worth its name would accept such frivolous excuses when competing modes of transport carry without much hassles and least complaint quotients.

What is more shocking is that for non-leased traffic, zonal railways carried parcels beyond their intended destinations in a significant number of cases. In the two months test checked, railways carried 13565 over-carried parcels back to their original destinations. Over carriage of parcels also took away space in Assistant Guard's Cabin (AGC)/ Brake Vans which could be utilised for transportation of parcel traffic. This resulted in hardships to the customers and fostered operational problems to the railway administration, the CAG report deplored adding that this also reflected on the quality of services being provided to the customers. There can be no direct hit on the railways for being slovenly in their remit to service customers with care and due regard to their legitimate concerns.

The CAG report also dealt with the management of linen in IR as the coaching stock consist of 390 AC first class coaches (7500 berths), 2375 AC(2-tier) coaches (112350 berths), and 5302 AC 3-tier sleeper coaches (345091 berths). Noting that a robust system for procurement, washing and distribution of linen is indispensable to provide clean, hygienic, well-ironed, and good quality linen to all passenger travelling in upper classes, audit found that as on end- March 2016 in respect of some of the linen items in selected General Stores Depots (GSDs), the stock in hand was less than one month's requirement. It further noted provision of inspection of a prescribed percentage of new supply was not being used effectively to ensure the quality of the linen received. The storage space of GSD was not adequate and items were not stored in a proper milieu, it said adding that the storage space in the coaching depots was also not adequate and proper storing arrangements were not made at many places.

To compound the woes of the travelling public paying through their noses, blankets and pillows were not dry cleaned or sanitised for long periods before supply to the passengers, the CAG candidly said. What galls the gullible travellers in premier trains is that at the end of the journey, the cleaning staff comes for baksheesh (tips) round as if the materials supplied were all spotless. The audit findings discussed here pertain only to two facets of the vast array of services the IR provides to its customers. But if the tip of the troubling icebergs is a pointer as to what great tasks lay ahead for the railway authorities to clean up the system, that itself would be a sobering thought that acche din perhaps may dawn in the foreseeable future, if not in the medium-term.