High-speed rail for India: Has the time finally come? For over 150 years, Indian railways have been living up to its motto as the lifeline of the nation, employing more than 1.3 million employees at the last count, and uniting the vast area of the sub-continent with 7,172 stations spread across 71,000 miles of track. However, decades of low investment coupled with a long-term policy of subsidised fares has left the system severely stretched in the face of rising demand, and contributing to the lack of robust national infrastructure that President Pranab Mukherjee recently described as one of Indias major impediments. Now, all of that could be about to change, as newly elected Prime Minister Narenda Modis majority administration sets out to modernise and upgrade the rail network and finally implement the high-speed service that was first mooted more than thirty years ago. Both of Indias main political parties manifestos ahead of the 2014 elections contained high-speed train pledges, with the Indian National Congress promising links for all of Indias cities, while Modis own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) favoured an initiative that would connect the four corners of the country. The Diamond Quadrilateral project - modelled on the successfully completed Golden Quadrilateral mega-express-highways linking the key metropolitan centres of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai - will see these same cities served by a high-speed rail network, and a further five schemes are also being considered. Nevertheless, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowdas inaugural budget speech in early July, which also announced a number of other improvements and extensions to key parts of the rail system, did not meet with universal approval. The very next day, members of the rival Nationalist Congress Party took to the streets to protest against the BJP-led ruling National Democratic Alliance plans. Theres a feeling that big-ticket spending on high-speed trains wont do much for many Indians, especially given the creaky nature of the system, the variety of gauges in the country [there are currently four, although standardisation work is underway] and the fact that even the proposed bullet trains will have to run at less than half-speed for years to come, says transport consultant, Ernie Bell. Critics argue that for the cost of implementing the Diamond project, you could speed up the work to bring existing lines up to 160 to 200 km/h and upgrade much of the existing fleet to run on them - and bring improved service to the whole population, not just the favoured metro areas, he says. In many ways, deciding between purchasing high-speed trains or doing something to ease the journey for the 23 million Indians who travel by rail each day is just the latest in a list of equally hard choices that have accompanied the development of Indias railways over the years, but the debate highlights one important issue. Joining the high-speed club comes at a price; is it one that India can afford - or perhaps more importantly, is willing to pay? The true picture may get clearer when the results of two international studies into the proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor by the French SNCF and Japans International Cooperation Agency become available over the next year, but until then India would do well to mull the Chinese experience. Beijing has invested heavily in high-speed rail - 12,000 km of it - but if you take Beijing-Shanghai out of the equation, the rest of the lines are expected to be running at a loss for decades - and I mean a really big loss. Is India prepared for that? Maybe it is; Indian Railways recently announced that revenue earnings were up by over 10% between April and July 2014. Perhaps that culture change is starting after all.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:04:44 +0000
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