R P C O P I A T

Railways

Presently, an average of more than 100 pairs of passenger trains are run daily on the state's rail network. Long distance mail/express trains connecting Kerala with as many as 20 destinations in various parts of the country, cater to the bulk of the inter-state movement of passengers. To meet the increased demand for long distance travel during the holiday and pilgrimage seasons, special trains are run additionally. It would, however, be worth noting that, in terms of the number of passengers carried, 90% comprise short distance and inter-city traffic, much of it being daily commuters availing of the facility of concessional season tickets. In fact, there is at present a large unsatisfied demand under this category, as evidenced by the heavy over crowding on most inter-city trains.

On the goods front, owing to the overall capacity constraints of Indian Railways in respect of both line capacity and rolling stock availability, the freight movements in recent years have largely been confined to full train loads of commodities like foodgrains, fertilizers, cement, steel and petroleum. Limitations in movement of piecemeal wagons have forced most other commodities, especially the high-rated ones, to move by road even over large distances, despite the fact that railways are nearly 4 ½ times more energy efficient than roads. Consequent on construction of the Konkan Railway, linking Mangalore with Mumbai, capacity augmentation had become necessary on the section Shoranur-Mangalore to cope with the additional traffic via new rail link.

Protagainsts of railway development have been voicing demands for new lines in the State, most of them being located in the hinter land, comprising hilly terrain. The argument commonly advanced by them is that the availability of railway routes in Kerala per lakh of population is only about half that for the country as a whole. The fallacy of this argument will be evident from the fact that the density of route km. of railways per 100 sq.km. of area is already quite high in Kerala, being 2.7 km. as against the national average of 1.9 km. In a diversely populated area like Kerala, where the pressure on land is high, the proper strategy for rail way development would be to strengthen the existing routes by doubling, electrification and improved signaling, so as to carry more and more of traffic. The laying of new railway lines should be confined to those which are economically viable and not likely to pose problems like environmental degradation, large scale acquisition of land, creation of a large number of level crossings, etc. Besides, railway construction in hilly terrain would be prohibitively costly, in the absence of communerate economic benefits. Contrary to the aforesaid rationale, two unremunerative new line projects, Angamali-Sabarimala and Kottayam-Erumeli, have been approved for inclusion in the Railways works Programme. These are understood to be still in the stage of final surveys and not yet cleared for actual construction.

In this context, it would be most appropriate if all further development of the transport infrastructure of the State is planned on the basis of the "Greater Mumbai model" considering the close similarity between the two, both in geographical shape and the travel needs of the population. According to this concept, the north-south arterial routes, both rail and road should be strengthened to form the main traffic corridors and the rest of the system developed to serve effectively as feeders to the same.

The last two Railway Budgets have indicated that the Railways are presently facing a grave financial crisis and have actually gone into the red, after an enviably long record of financial viability. In the circumstances, the availability of funds for the 'Railways' plan investments is going to be very scarce. To effect a financial turn-around, it would be imperative for the Railways to limit its future investments to projects which are financially viable and not likely to pass on additional burden to the users. In view of the foregoing, it would be unwise to press the Railway Ministry to invest on any new line, gauge conversion, or doubling work that is not financially viable. The State would, instead, stress more upon its known additional needs of transportation, whether passenger or goods, to be met by augmenting the train services or other facilities. The question whether any particular line needs to be doubled, electrified, or guage converted, should be left to the Railways to decide. The fact that trains hair occasionally to wait for crossings on single-line sections cannot by itself justify doubling of the line. Doubling should also not be demanded for as done in the case of Kuttippuram-Shoranur, or presently being done in case of the coastal line between Ernakulam and Kayamkulam via Alleppey, opened barely 10 years ago, just for parity with the original route via. Kottayam which had reached saturation long back. Besides, the Alleppey line still has scope for further augmentation of line capacity by opening more of crossing stations, etc, whereas no such possibility exists on the route via. Kottayam.

In the context of the Railways inability to meet all the demands from states, the Railway Ministry has lately suggested the setting-up of Railway Infrastructure Development Corporations, based a cost sharing between the State and the Railway Ministry, for finding of railway projects which have potential to meet the transportation needs of the State, but the Railways are unable to take up on their own.