On the 4th of June, The New York Times, which has often been terribly racist towards India and her achievements published an article headlined “Money for Show Horses, Not Work Horses, on Indiaʼs Rails”. In the article written by Alex Travelli, the New York Times acknowledges that railway safety has improved drastically since the Modi government took over, however, somehow reaches the conclusion that not enough is being spent on safety, but instead, resources are being spent on speed and comfort instead.
“In a country where major industry and political fortunes alike are often tied to a vast, interwoven rail system, India has lavished public resources on new trains, but its purse strings have been much tighter when it comes to ensuring the safety of those already racing along its tracks”, the NYT article read.
If propaganda was an art, The New York Times would probably be Mozart. They carefully start with their conclusion, helping the readers’ make up their minds, believing their conclusion, without providing the facts on the basis of which they reached the said conclusion. They instead quoted some ‘experts’ to make their point.
Talking about the Balasore triple train accident, the New York Times makes strange assertions claiming, “But most of Mr. Modi’s initiatives have been aimed not at the basic steps needed to get trains from Point A to Point B without mishap, but at improving speed and comfort. He regularly extols higher-fare new electric Vande Bharat trains connecting bigger cities and has made an early priority of a Japanese-style bullet train, though it can do nothing to improve the lives of the country’s ordinary passengers”.
Interestingly, NYT makes this assertion while acknowledging that “The budget for the train system, one of the largest in the world, is five times as much this year than when he took office”.
To make their claims believable, NYT quotes experts and the CAG report. “A report last year by India’s auditor general, an independent office, found that less money was being allocated for track renewal work and that officials had not even spent the full amount set aside”, the report says. However, it is important to keep in mind that CAG reports are meant to keep government departments on their toes and by no means does the report state that insufficient amount is being spent towards safety of railways.
In fact, further in the article, after reaching a conclusion essentially against the Modi government, the NYT article itself acknowledges that railways safety has improved drastically under the Modi government.
The article says, “Derailments were once frequent, with an average of 475 per year from 1980 to about the turn of the century. In the decade leading to 2021, that number dropped to just over 50, according to a paper railway officials presented at the World Congress on Disaster Management. Rail safety in India, more generally, has also improved, with the number of serious train accidents dropping steadily: to 22 in the 2020 fiscal year from more than 300 annually two decades ago. By 2020, for two years in a row, India had recorded no passenger deaths in rail accidents — a milestone hailed by the Modi government. Until 2017, more than 100 passengers were killed every year”.
It is, therefore, evident that despite understanding how the railways’ safety has improved under the Modi government, a feat that would not be possible had a substantial amount of money not been spent on upgradation, the NYT chose to reach the conclusion that the Modi government is spending money on vanity projects and comfort instead of safety. This argument is certainly not surprising when made by The New York Times, given its history of racism against India. The argument is similar to saying why India should spend on going to the moon when there are poor people who sleep on the road – an argument that NYT had made once with this cartoon.
Be that as it may, there are several important facts that The New York Times has perniciously omitted from their article. For the benefit of NYT and its readers, here are some facts related to the Indian government, the safety of railways improving drastically since the Modi government took over and the money being spent to that end.
Measures taken by the Modi government to improve railways’ safety
Enough funds have been allocated to implement various modernisation measures for the rail network. A capital outlay of ₹2.40 lakh crore has been provided for the current financial year. Since 2014, there has been a substantial increase in fund allocation for New Line, Electrification, Gauge Conversion and Doubling Projects. The average Annual Budget allocation for these works was the highest-ever Rs 67,001 crore during 2022-23, which is 481% more than the average annual budget outlay of 2009-14, which was Rs. 11,527 crore).
Since independence, around 21,400 route km of the railway network was electrified till 2014, which was 33% of the total route. After the Modi govt came to power, over 37,000 route km have been electrified. According to railways, India now has around 90% of railway electrification completed. Interestingly, India is now global leader among major countries in railway electrification. In comparison, in USA only around 1% of route is electrified, and for Canada, the figure is only 0.2%. Australia, Russia, and China have electrified 10%, 51% and 68% of their routes respectively, while the figure for European Union is 56%.
After independence, the expansion of the railway network had almost stopped, it did not expand much beyond what was laid by the British. That has changed under the Modi government. During 2014-2022, 20,628 km sections of new lines were laid, ad 5,507 km Gauge Conversion and 11,151 km of Doubling was done.
During the financial year 2022-2023, 5,227 km of Complete Track Renewal was carried out. In the last 10 years, a Complete Track Renewal of 37,159 kms of track was completed. While 2,885 km was renewed in 2013-2014 (while the Congress govt was in power), in 2022-2023, that number has increased to 5,227 km.
For the purpose of track upgradation, a Modern track structure, consisting of 60kg, 90 Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) rails, Pre-stressed Concrete Sleeper was used. As on 31st March 2023, 65% of Broad Gauge Track was completed.
The Railways have started using long rails to minimise joins, and long rail panels of 260-metre and 130-metre lengths are being manufactured for this purpose. And for joints, the older fishplate joints with bolts are being replaced with welded joints. On most broad gauge tracks, earlier short-welded 39-metre rails have been replaced with long-welded rails, covering almost 90% of the total BG track in the network.
The old manual switching and signalling systems have been replaced by Panel Interlocking, Route Relay Interlocking, and Electronic Interlocking systems. This means now track alignments can be changed by just pressing a button, instead of pushing and pulling levers. These systems have improved safety and the efficiency of the rail network considerably.
97% of the stations now have modern Signaling Systems with electronic and relay-based interlocking.
In another improvement, the Two-aspect colour-light signals have been replaced with Multiple Aspect Colour Light Signals at 6,396 Stations out of total 6,506 stations. In two aspect signals, two colour lights are used, red for stop and green for go. In Multiple Aspect Colour Light Signalling, two yellow lights are added to it. One yellow light is lit to indicate caution and both are used to indicate attention.
Indian Railways now use Block Proving Axle Counters to ensure that a train has entered a line or exited a line at a station so that the next train can be allowed to enter that line. Earlier, it was a manual job. Now, the axle counters placed at both ends of track sections ensure that the track section is empty before permitting another train in that section. It eliminates human error and controls the safe movement of trains between stations.BPAC systems have been installed at 6,364 Block Sections out of 6,607 Block Sections in the BG network.
The Railways have undertaken a massive mission to remove unmanned level crossings, converting them to manned LCs, and also providing overbridges and underpasses with the collaboration of respective road authorities. Along with this, manned level crossing gates are being interlocked with signals on broad gauge routes, to ensure that no gate is left open when a train crosses a road. In the next phase, the Railways plans to eliminate all manned level crossings, by providing overbridges and underpasses everywhere a road crosses a railway line. The Railways is now closing average 676 manned level crossings per year, up from 199 during 2009-2014.
A major and ongoing project is the replacement of the older ICF (Integral Coach Factory) design coaches with Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches which have several advantages. Coach production units of the railways are now making only LHB coaches. LHB coaches have anti-telescopic features, don’t climb over each other in case of a crash, have better disc brakes, and are less prone to derail.
The most important safety improvement being undertaken by the Railways is the Kavach anti-collision system. While the system has been installed on only small segments of tracks, work is on to install it on the entire network gradually. The Kavach system can apply brakes to control speed if the driver fails to do so. It is interfaced with the existing electronic interlocking system, and is designed to prevent head-on and rear-end collision between two trains running on the same track.
As a result of these measures, the number of consequential train accidents has decreased by over 2.4 times from 118 in 2013-14 to 48 in the year 2022-23.
