Can we justify our high speed rail?

The cost-intensive projects come at a time when our conventional railway desperately needs an overhaul

As protests against Kerala government's new semi-high-speed rail project — the SilverLine — gather steam, there is renewed focus on other such aspirational railway projects across the country.

Over the past ten years, there has been a stress on ambitious initiatives such as high speed (bullet) trains. Going ahead with these expensive projects when regular railway infrastructure is crumbling and accidents are taking place, raises questions about the government’s priorities.

Does image building trump the people’s needs?

At present, the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (HSR) Corridor is under execution with technical and financial assistance from Japan, while a detailed project report (DPR) is being prepared for six other HSR corridors. While these projects are the Centre's initiatives, the Kerala project is a state initiative.

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"The high speed train projects are a prestige issue. India wants to compete with countries like China. The government also wants to bring in the novelty factor. While this may work initially, it won’t ensure continuous ticket sales. The Train 18 system or Vande Bharat Express, that ply on upgraded conventional tracks is more appropriate," says railway policy analyst Chitresh Shrivastva.

The estimated cost of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad project is Rs 1.1 lakh crore, for a 508-km long route.

The project, which was to be completed by 2022, is now pushed to 2026, mired in land acquisition delays in Maharashtra. Now work is being done in Gujarat, where more than 97 % land has already been acquired. But the delay might further push up the cost.

However, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw is optimistic. "The work on the project is going on in full swing. Already work on pillars along 13 km length has been completed. We have started achieving 5 km every month. Now we are targeting 10 km every month," he says.

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Vivek Sahai, former Railway Board Chairman, points to the cost factor. “It has been proven that to recover the initial investment, you need 50 million passengers annually along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad line. I hope that the government has taken this into consideration.”

Another aspect is that seven high speed rail projects have been approved without looking at a prototype. The rush to implement several such projects is unwise, Chitresh says.

Already saddled with a debt burden and poor operating ratio, the railways is under pressure to modernise its infrastructure. However, such efforts are more likely to be derailed by the prioritisation of costly projects, which are taken up without consulting the public.

Last year, a parliamentary committee noted that during 2018-19, the railways built only 479 km (regular railway network) as against its target of 1,000 km. The next year, the railways didn’t speed up the construction. Instead, it halved the target to 500 km. The government has blamed the land acquisition hurdles, especially the The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, for the delay.

The parliamentary standing committee on railways has been flagging these delays for years. Back in 2017, the committee had flagged the 432 pending railway lines and urged for a realistic assessment of the projects, noting that 222 of them have negative rate of return. Some of these projects have been pending for four decades.

The recommendations by the Kakodkar committee (2012) to improve the safety conditions of Indian railways have still largely not been implemented. Among other things, it recommended an advanced signalling system, eliminating level crossings, and a new statutory railway safety board — all at a cost of one lakh crore.

The severity of the recent Bikaner-Guwahati derailment could have been reduced if the train had installed Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches that prevent pile up, as recommended by the committee.

Pankaj Joshi of Urban Center Mumbai says, “While high speed railways may provide necessary access between cities that require substantial mobility like between Mumbai and Pune or Chennai and Bengaluru, the choice to locate the stations between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is not natural. You don’t see the kind of mobility between the two cities.”

There are other interventions that could improve the conditions of railways. For a fraction of the cost of these HSRs, biodigesters could be installed in all operating trains to keep tracks and toilets more hygienic, he says.

SilverLine project

Meanwhile, the Kerala government’s semi-high-speed rail project — the SilverLine — aims to reduce the travel time between Thiruvananthapuram to Kasargod, a distance of 529 kilometers, to less than four hours. The journey currently takes more than ten hours by road and rail.

But the project has run into several problems. For one, the Centre has rejected the proposal for SilverLine, stating incomplete documentation.

People across the state have been protesting the proposed land acquisition for more than a year, with social activists like Medha patkar and Daya Bai extending their support to the movement.

Political parties like the Kerala Congress-Led United Democratic Front and the BJP have also joined the protests.

There are also serious environmental concerns: the DPR indicates that the SilverLine cuts through ecologically sensitive areas like the Vembanad lake, the longest lake in India, while a five kilometre tunnel is planned underneath the Kallayil river in Kozhikode.

The Environmental Impact Assessment raises concerns about providing “proper drainage in banking portions to avoid water logging” as the embankment along the rail line cuts through watershed areas.

Like with the Mumbai-Ahmedabad project, experts are sceptical about the projections of ridership and cost made in the DPR.

Social activist R Sridhar, who has been looking into the project extensively, points out that the cost estimates of many components of the project were up to 75 percent lower in the DPR prepared in 2020 compared to the feasibility report prepared in 2019.

While the DPR’s total cost projection is Rs 63,491 crore, experts feel that it would be actually more than Rs 1.25 lakh crore.

E Sreedharan, former managing director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, has expressed serious doubts over the cost projections. While the DPR pegs the cost for over-bridges and underpasses at Rs 4,425 cr, Sreedharan says that it would require at least Rs 16,000 crore to execute.

The daily ridership was also estimated at 79,934 — even higher than that of the Pune-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project.

Veteran social scientist V G Menon compared the situation to that of the Kochi metro, which is yet to reach its projected ridership, nearly five years after inauguration.

Some experts DH spoke to had taken up the contradictions in cost projects with higher authorities of Paris-based consulting group SYSTRA which prepared the reports.

Another concern is more practical — where will the money come from?

The state is already neck deep in a financial crisis, with a public debt of around Rs 3.5 lakh crore, and is literally struggling to pay even salaries and pensions.

Economist K P Kannan says that given the spate of natural calamities that have struck the state and the Covid pandemic, the government should prioritise restoring the environment and strengthening the public health systems.

Issues like last-mile connectivity and high fares could also keep the project out of the reach of a vast majority of the population. Going by the projections, travelling 100 km could cost nearly Rs 400, making it one of the most expensive modes of transport in the state.

Is there an alternative?

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has advocated the introduction of the Vande Bharat trains in Kerala, while others have suggested strengthening existing road and rail networks or making use of water transport services.

Over the years, several ambitious projects like the high speed marine highway, seaplane service and airstrips in all districts have been proposed, but have failed to take off. Now, it looks like the SilverLine is the latest to join the list.

A majority of the railway passengers come from low and middle income groups. While providing affordable transport, the government can also look at improving the facilities for passengers.

(With inputs from Mrityunjay Bose in Mumbai and Varsha Gowda in Bengaluru)

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