Lessons for Mamata’s Railway

The speed at which the British, whatever their compulsions were, built railways in India deserves to be remembered at a stage when Indian railway seems to be in a slumber. Probably its time to recall what they did and so did we in the initial years before the slumber crept into our implementation mechanism.

Case I

1858: The first plan to lay railway tracks in eastern India was made by the British when Eastern Bengal Railway (guaranteed railways) was formed in 1858. In 1859 Eastern Bengal Railway (EBR) begins construction on Calcutta-Kushtia line (175km). In 1862 November, EBR’s Calcutta-Kushtia (now in Bangladesh) line opens for traffic. By 1879 North Bengal State Rly. opens Parbatipur-Kaunia (both in northern Bangladesh) MG line.

Case II

1878: A standard gauge railway connected Kolkata and Siliguri in 1878. Siliguri, at the base of the Himalayas, was connected to Darjeeling by Tonga services. Franklin Prestage, an agent of Eastern Bengal Railway Company approached the government with a proposal of laying a steam tramway from Siliguri to Darjeeling. The proposal was accepted in 1879 after review by a committee and construction started the same year. The 86 kilometres Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, nicknamed the “Toy Train” was built between 1879 and 1881.

Case III

The first rail line was laid in 1853. By 1901 total Railway mileage reach at about 24,750 miles in India, of which 14,000 miles are BG (Broad Gauge), and most of the rest MG (Medium Gauge). By 1931 the total track in India jumps to about 43,000 miles.

We also had some of the British efficiency left in the early years of partition.

1947: Post partition two big systems, Bengal Assam Railway and North Western Railway are no longer in India (these included the workshops of Saidpur and Mogulpura, respectively). Assam Railway is cut off from the rest of the Indian system.

Assam Rail Link re-connecting Assam Railways with the rest of the Indian system wholly through Indian Territory: 229 km meter-gauge line is built within 2 years. Link opened to passenger traffic on Jan 26, 1950: Republic Day.

See the speed at which the above project were completed and compare that to the current scenario.

A master plan is announced in 1996 to link all the capital cities of the eight northeastern states by 2006. It’s 2010. Besides Guwahati, only Tripura capital Agartala are connected by the railway network in 2008 after constant struggle. In 2011 rail budget, Mamata Banerjee announces that the seven northeastern capitals will be connected in the next seven years.

On the front of building tracks as well, we have miserably failed. From where the British left, India has hardly done enough to use develop its rail network. True, why the British Raj built railway lines so fast because of its plans to control India and ensure transportation of military and supplies at a quick pace across the country but so are the needs of modern India to provide a cheap and reliable means of all weather transport.

Learn from China Mamata:

China has done it. China’s railway network has grown from 78,000 km at the end of 2007 to 91,000 km at the end of 2010, and is expected to grow to 110,000 km by the end of 2012. That means that China has added almost half of the India’s total rail network in last decade alone.

From 1990 to 2001, China has added, on average some 1,092 km of new railways, 837 km of multiple-track, and 962 km of electrified railways annually. And we, after almost two decades of economic reforms, have added less than one thousand KMs in last 20 years. Our rail route length has grown from 62,367 km in 1990 to only about 63,350 km now. China built over 2,500 km of new lines in 2008, 3,450 km in 2009 and plans to add 6,000 km of new tracks every year till 2020!!!
The fastest Indian trains, the Rajdhani and the Shatabdi average no more than 80 km per hour.

Any train that runs at 55 km per hour or more is called super-fast. We don’t have enough of them either. And our goods trains run no more than 19 km to 30 km per hour in different part of the country. Eight years from now (ignore the delays), some 3,000 km of dedicated freight corridors (forming only a tiny segment of our total network) will, hopefully, be in service. They might be running at 100 km an hour.

The average speed on the Chinese railways has shot up to 200 km per hour from 55 km per hour in 1997. China has almost 9000 KMs of High Speed Rail Network with trains running at between 200 km and 350 km per hour and will have 25000 KMs of High Speed Network by 2015.

Alas! Has India have enough visionary leaders, democracy would have more reasons to justify itself. We have done it before. It's time not to fail ourselves and mourn but to do it, once again.