RTAILWAY'S ELECTRIFICATION MANIA --------------------------------- From Jal Khambata NEW DELHI: If electricity goes off in your area, the culprit in most cases is the Indian Railways that gets top priority over all--homes, factories and agriculture. Each electric locomotive engine guzzles electricity that can be enough for 15,000 homes and yet there is a mad craze for adding more and more electric tracks in this power-starved country. The United States systematically phased out all electric locos and most of the Europe prefers diesel locos for running the train despite abuNdance of cheap power, while India has been continuously increasing the electric traction cover of the railway routes unmindful of its economic costs. A misconception that electric trains are cheaper not only aggravates power shortages but also puts back the Indian Railways every year by Rs 2,000 crores, which is not a small loss for the cash-starved Nitish Kumar itching to jack up both fare and freight tariff in the Railways Budget he has to present to Parliament on Thursday. There is a shortfall of Rs 1900 crores in the the projected earning of Rs 31,472 crores and hence it is to be seen how much deep Nitish Kumar dips into the Railways' reserves as that alone can reduce an otherwise a harsh burden in store for public. Insiders say the increase in fare and freight tariff will be, in any case, more than the Rs 450-crore hike effected last year. Nitish Kumar is only emboldened by a go-ahead for the hike given by the Planning Commission in the Ninth Plan. Given this scenario, anybody wanting reduction in rail fare or freight rates would look foolish as it would put the Railways more in the red and starve it of funds desperately needed for investment in safety works, signalling improvement, line capacity and rolling stocks. A wishful hope is, however, kindled when someone from inside the Railways' gigantic setup says there is still scope for cutting down the passenger fares by at least 25 per cent or the freight tariff by 12 per cent. That hope has been kindled by some of the senior executives of the Railways who ought to know how this can be possible. They have documented how the priorities have gone wrong and how the electrification mania is causing a drain of Rs 2,000 crores every year. These conscientious executives want someone to stop further drain on the exchequer by putting on hold all electrification projects proposed to be undertaken and institute an inquiry by an independent group that excludes the advisers in Rail Bhawan who are, for reasons unknown, driving the railways to dooms. They have no voice in how the Railways spend and yet they feel a public opinion should be built to immediately halt further overhead electrification and electric loco purchase. They say just this one correction in the wrong priorities will make the Railways flush with funds to swing back to health without taxing the public. Nitish Kumar will be hiking fare and freight tariff because he needs money to run more trains and to strengthen tracks and safety system. The executives say just suspension of new electric tracks and electric locos purchases can mean money enough to renew 6000 km of overaged track or construct 1100 km of new lines or conversion of 2000 km of metre gauges or acquire 4,000 coaches to run 200 new trains. They claim pulling of trains with diesel locos is always cheaper than electric traction. It is also a misconception that electrification is helping India save big foreign exchange spent on diesel. The Indian Railways' total diesel consumption is 1.85 million kilo-litres which is just 1.5 per cent of the total consumption of the petroleum products. Each electric loco requires an overall capital investment of about Rs 52 croresm which includes Rs 7 crores spent by the Railways in locomotive and electrification and another Rs 45 crores by the State Electricity Boards in generation and transmission. Even if the Railways sees only the cost of Rs 7 crores that it incurs, it is still more compared to Rs 5 crores needed for diesel locomotive of equivalent power. Even the running cost of electric traction is higher. Citing the latest published statistics of the year 1996-97, the executives say the Railways would have saved at least Rs 600 crores in fuel cost alone in that year if the entire traffic was moved by diesel traction. Pointing out that the crude oil prices the world over are at their lowest in the last 12 years and India plans to stop imports from July with adequate in-house refining capacity, they say this would make the high-speed diesel oil use even cheaper. In contrasts, the State Electricity Boards have been fleecing the Railways with the power supply at an average Rs 8 per unit. Electrification is extremely capital intensive and its annual interest burden alone at the present day cost is about Rs 1100 crore. And yet, we continue to invest additional Rs 350 crores in railway electrification every year. The executives also seek to explode the myth that diesel locos have a high social cost in terms of environment degradation. The diesel is almost entirely burnt leaving nothing to pollute. They point out a World Bank report that says diesel traction is more environment friendly than electric traction because emission level of "green house" gases by electricity generated from coal is 50 per cent higher than that generated from diesel. Technology of diesel traction is most modern and cost effective and that is why the economic powers like United States and Australia chose to phase out all electric locos and even the European countries having abundance of cheaper surplus electricity prefer 70 per cent of trains run by diesel locos. Distances in the west unlike India are also much shorter and hence laying of the overhead electric lines would not have cost much, but despite that all countries in the Europe have restricted electrification to a maximum of 30 per cent. The executives claim the electricity-starved India has already electrified 31 per cent of the broadgauge network and large number of projects are still in hand. The Status Paper on the Indian Railways tabled in Parliament by Nitish Kumar in May last year says electric traction covers 21 per cent of network and not 31 per cent as claimed but that is besides the point. The issue is that the operational cost of the Railways is going up because of heavy investment in electric traction compelling continuous increase in rail fare and freight tariff to the extent that the Status Paper itself admitted how the traffic is fast shifting from the rails to roads. The Railways carried 80 per cent of passenger traffic and 89 per cent of the goods traffic in 1950-51 while it had in 1996-97 only 20 per cent share of the passenger traffic and 40 per cent of the goods traffic, the rest preferring buses and trucks. Even the industries that used to move bulk of their inputs and production by rail have been fast switching over to road transport so much so that at a Railways' Freight Traffic Managers' conference held in Delhi five months ago someone had pointed out that the rate at which the Railways were losing the clients it would soon be reduced to be a carrier of only "mitti" (ore). Many cement factories have shifted to truck transport and ACC, one of the biggest manufacturer of cement, has also only recently thratened to stop using the Railways for transportation. The coal transport by trucks even today cost much more than by goods trains and yet many private and government industries have quietly switched over to procure their coal through truck transport. The executives give nine reasons why electric traction should be abandoned in the over national interest. On an electrified route, the power substation capacity imposes a limit on the number of trains that can be run and many times it causes delay in train operation. No such constraints exist with diesel traction. And in case of an accident, the scenario is the worst as electric locos cannot be used and diesel locos are required to be brought from far off places, which means loss of time in quick medical aid to the victim passengers. Electric locos can certainly operate at very high speed as in Japan but then India' old and overaged tracks put a lot of restriction on running trains even at 100 km per hour. The executives suspect a vicious circle of the vested elements in the Rail Bhawan and at various decision-making levels as they point out that everyone has ignored even the recommendations of a committee on "Review of Railway Electrification" set up by the Planning Commission in 1989. The committee, headed by retired Railway Board chairman M S Gujral, had covered electrification requirements of the Railways well into the Tenth Plan with both operational and financial consideration. The report says: "For the IXth and Xth Plans together, our recommendations total 2136 kms of electrification, that is 214 kms per year." The actual electrification has been more than 1,000 km in just first two years of the IXth Plan itself while the sanctioned projects exist for another 4,500 kms. Wow! Electrification is going on routes which this committee had categorically recommended not to electrify, after considerable deliberations with the General Managers of the concerned zonal railways. The report had even specified a minimum traffic density level before a section can be considered for electrification. The Railway Board subsequently in 1995 revised this cut-off limit to 50 gross million tonnes (GMT) of traffic per annum. There are, however, areas where the traffic is as low as five GMT and yet they are under proposed electrification. END. ----------