For those dreaming of travelling by a bullet train, you may be no more than seven years away from realising it. However, there are some fears regarding the upkeep of conventional railways, if high-speed rail (HSR) is developed across key corridors in India in the next two decades.
The first question is, therefore, should we be building a bullet train when the conventional rail system is in such disrepair. Indian Railways (IR), due to a long period of under-investment, has failed to upgrade its throughput on par with state-of-the-art railway systems of the world, satisfying political interests at the cost of operational efficiency. Today, what it offers is a scarcity of rail transport, both in terms of quantity -- like non-availability of seats/berths and crowded coaches -- and in terms of quality, including a stagnation in speed. These reasons have pushed passengers towards luxury buses, low-cost airlines and car travel. As per the Indian Transport Report of 2014, the share of rail in passenger transport fell from 68% in 1950-51 to just 10% in 2011-12.
To scale up rail connectivity, however, Railways may not be able to follow the path of only upgrading existing, archaic rail systems. High-speed rail, if it succeeds, could help increase the speed of travel as well as capacity on the rail corridors.
To be sure, though, the development of HSR will not make conventional rail irrelevant. Rather, it should help increase the share of rail systems in passenger transport to a respectable level. It is well accepted now that India is on a growth path and will continue to witness at least 5% compounded annual growth rate till 2050. That means, the size of the Indian economy in 2050 will be at least five times what it is today. Demand for passenger transport has usually increased at about 1.5 times the economy’s growth rate. So, passenger transport supply will not outstrip demand even if 10,000 km of HSR systems are built across key corridors.
Will Indian Railways lose its sheen if the cream of its clientele, the AC-class passengers move away to the bullet train? The truth is, the railways cross-subsidises not only sleeper and second-class travellers, but also 1AC and 2AC travellers, too, although the subsidy is higher for sleeper and second-class travel. Thus, Indian Railways is currently using a third of its network resources to earn two-thirds of its revenue from freight transport, which itself is declining, and two-thirds of its network resources on passenger transport to earn one-third of its revenue. If the bullet train does wean away AC-class passengers – at least some will move because the fare for high-speed rail is expected to be somewhere between that for first class train fare and the cost of an air ticket for travel between the same two cities – it could give the conventional railways room to improve its freight transport service, which has been utterly dismal for a long time.
In fact, except for bulk freight traffic, freight transporters prefer road over rail, although the cost of road transport is higher compared to rail transport. This is due to the wrong policy of giving first access of tracks to passenger trains over freight trains, despite the fact that passenger trains have been bleeding the finances of IR for about two decades now. Indian Railways should use the arrival of high-speed rail to push up its share of freight transport.
A big concern is whether the government will further neglect conventional rail systems once the bullet trains are commissioned. In other countries, conventional rail systems operate at an average speed of 100 kmph to 150 kmph, whereas in India the current average speed of non-ordinary (Mail/Express and premium trains), ordinary trains (the slow-moving passenger trains) and freight trains is between 50 kmph to 80 kmph, 35 kmph and 25 kmph respectively. There is therefore great scope for upgradation and modernisation of railways even within the constraints of conventional rail systems. Indian Railways has, in fact, already initiated many measures in this regard. For instance, there is a plan to upgrade Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah lines to the maximum speed of 160/200 kmph, at an investment of Rs 18,000 crore under Mission Raftaar, whereby the lines are fenced, all the unmanned and manned level crossings are removed with road-over-bridge and road-under-bridge, etc. In May 2016, a Mobility Directorate was established to increase the average speed of rail passenger transport from 46.3 kmph to 71.3 kmph and freight transport from 25 kmph to 50 kmph.
There is one more concern that Indian Railways must address. Although, IR has managed to attract funding commitments from various agencies like LIC and World Bank and other sources to the tune of Rs 8.5 lakh crore for its development mission in the next five years, it needs to set right its finances so that it can pay back interest and loan without going bankrupt. The decades-long legacy of managing Indian Railways as a hand-to-mouth organisation has made it incapable of making large-scale investments well. It’s a tough call for whoever heads the rail ministry, but the government must ensure that even as it goes ahead with bullet trains, it also helps Indian Railways clean up its act.
(The writer holds a doctorate degree from IIM-Ahmedabad and has extensively researched Indian Railways and high-speed rail systems)