Written By silkboard - 14 January, 2013

Bangalore SWR Reforms Complaint Infrastructure Indian Railways federal

There are state highways, and national highways, who builds and maintains what is pretty clear. Viability analysis and rate of return on investment is not the top consinderation when state, such as Karnataka decides to upgrade a state highway, or just build a new road to connect a new district.

Central Government (through national highway act, 1956) and now NHAI (through NHAI Act, 1988) does the job of:

... development, maintenance and management of national highways and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto ...

Then, you have Karnataka government (through Karnataka Highways Act, 1964) doing the job of:

—The State Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, declare any road, way or land to be a highway  and classify it as,—
    (i) a State highway (Special);
    (ii) a State highway;
    (iii) a major district road;
    (iv) other district road; or
    (v) a village road.

and 

The State Government may ... appoint ... any person or any authority to be a Highway Authority for all highways in the State or in parts of the State, or for any particular highway or highways in the State ...

Contrast this with Indian Railways, and its geographically arranged, and seemingly administrative purpose only sub-parts like South Western Railway. There is no "mapping" of SWR to Karnataka, or any other state for that matter. There is no autonomy of decision making either with SWR, or state of Karnataka or both of them together.

• What benefit do we get by waiting on Central Railway Minister's speech to get a completely in-state train like Kolar Karwar Express or Chamrajnagar Bijapur express?
• When the central government takes on the additional burden of decision making by propagating even the local rail transportation needs all the way back to itself, we get neither efficiency nor speed.
• A local politician at Karnataka just can NOT make things like a Hubli-Bangalore high speed rail corridor his main election plank. This line of promise-making is plain and simple closed for us.
• Why can two states, say state of Karnataka and Tamilnadu not join hands to develop a faster rail corridor between Bangalore and Chennai, and execute the project with no decision making dependency on the central government?

Rail, Road and Air are the three main modes for connectivity infrastructure. Air not being as practical for spread (cost), rail and road are key. In here, state has the authority to develop and manage only one - "Decade long delay in double line between Bangalore and Mysore, okay, we will do our own 4 lane highway!"

To keep the inter state connectivity hassle free and smooth, designated tracks could be owned by a central entity. Or "slots" on marked and designated lines connecting state capital with each other could be handed over to a central authority to plan and operate longer distance cross-state goods and people movements.

But one doesn't see much merit in the Indian Railways staying the way it is today. It can be argued that it is hurting public interest now, poor people (and small businesses - for moving goods) are being denied the cheaper (in most cases) and faster connectivity (that rails offer) and are instead being lured towards fossil fuel based and more expensive (air, private vehicles) options.

It would seem that a central authority is required only to

• Issue and certify technology and safety standards
• Safeguard cross-state and through-state corridors in the national interests (so that in-state legislations, say at MP don't impact connectivity of states beyond it, say Karnataka and Northern states)
• Offer consultancy in designing and executing projects, as Indian Railways has built that expertise over the years
• Regulate fares to keep the option of control in case few states decide to outsource operations to third/private parties, and they go berserk on fares

Let the states decide for themselves where and where not lay tracks, and what to do with and on those tracks. Its time, and it could be hurting public interest as we see here today ourselves through delays and decision making unclarity on Commuter Rail Service and ever-pending simple-sounding projects like Mysore track doubling or a straight line to Hassan.

I am posting this to check around on the sentiments on this thought. This thread originated after our recent discussions on whether and when to pursue that PIL for Namma Railu. A PIL to ask for dissolution of bodies like SWR and replace them with autnomous state government controlled bodies - that would be attacking the very reason we have to live with unclarity on who to go plead with for Namma Railu :)

PS: Thoughts are mainly from passenger angle, I don't understand the commercial/goods side well enough.
PPS: Railway map of Karnataka, courtesy SBC_YPR, he sketched this here a few years ago. And not much has changed in the two years ;)

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