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Commuter Rail meetings with Mr Ananth Kumar, Mr V Madhu - report

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Written By silkboard - 21 May, 2010

Bangalore CRS SWR Transportation public transport Commuter rail

Yesterday was kind of a big day for this project. Some of us met Mr V Madhu, Principal Secretary, Infrastructure Development Department, Govt of Karnataka. And Sanjeev managed a meeting with BJP MP, Mr Ananth Kumar.

Murali, blrsri, N, IDS and myself were there with Mr Madhu, spent about an hour with him, mostly listening to his thoughts. He seemed like a high energy guy. And as it happens in the most of these meetings, the ball was thrown back in our court. Mr Madhu asked us to return in a couple of weeks with a report carrying all our ideas on CRS and an actionable way.

Sanjeev too, from his meeting with Mr Ananth Kumar, got this task of getting back to him with a solid presentation on Commuter Rail for Bangalore.

So net net, good meetings, but now, we have some work to do. Let us log our detailed meeting reports here. IDS - request you to create a separate project task to build a presentation on CRS. We can send the same one to both Mr Ananth Kumar and Mr Madhu. Can send a detailed report (based on the presentation) to Mr Madhu a bit later.

Meanwhile, some pictures from the IDD meeting.

cheers,

SB aka Pranav

COMMENTS

Points from Mr Madhu's meeting

idontspam - 21 May, 2010 - 06:55

Let me state it is hard to have a result oriented conversation with busy people. Mr Madhu is one such person. Some major points

  1. GoK is willing to provide money for more trains as many as it takes for IR to run it. This has been the offer for more than 10 years now. It has been taken up hesitatingly now by IR. There is still money on the table ready for trains assuming IR will operate. Ball clearly on IR table
  2. Madhu was shocked I was asking for world class rolling stock (ayyo that is very expensive). I can only assume he doesnt want to pour that much money to Indian Railways considering they can very well screw up the whole project if they wish
  3. Madhu agreed CRS Operations by a thrid entity like an SPV or doing the whole thing on PPP can be considered. He needed to discuss this with IR COO Mr Goswami. Then again thinking aloud on the SPV & Konkan Railway model meant super long term project length per Mr Madhu, 10 years +
  4. Metro to all these places was ruled out by Madhu as there are jurisdictional issues and will need amendments etc.
  5. Madhu himself was thinking aloud if it is possible to lay tracks close to IR land but if land acquisition is involved it will become very expensive again. We did mention it may not be a problem beyond Byappanahlli but can be a problem between there & Yeswantpur/Kengeri. He is open to studying that.
  6. My suggestion of leasing/renting railway land was met with why would they do it? (I got the feeling then, there goes the CRS down the drain) 
  7. My point was there has to be a radically new way of structuring this so IR connectivity to existing towns was leveraged was met with the comment that  working relationship with IR is good but their internal process is long winded so he needs to think of options.
  8. My comments that there needed to be lots more stations & accessibility was met with. Yes Yes, let us know what you want in your report and I will commission a prefeasibility report to see what can be done

My takeway was this: is not going to be easy if somebody other than IR has to run it. If IR is running it then be prepared for a nam-ke-waastey service based on their whims & fancies. If GoK is going to put money on tracks, stations etc etc the arrangement has to ensure there is some control on ops by the SPV/PPP etc. IR running & GoK putting crores of investment for IR to screw up doesnt seem appealing to lots of people going by the track record.

 Yes it is hard work but the options of not doing CRS is nasty unsustainable growth of Bangalore setting a really bad example for the rest of the world. It is easier for everyone from administrators to politicians to wash their hands of Bengaluru and say its irreparable, but the citizens are not willing to give up on an ecosystem called Bengaluru which has some really great minds, that can change the world, living in it.

Uploaded some pictures

silkboard - 31 May, 2010 - 03:04

... from our meeting with Mr Madhu, see the original post above.

Also, I am going to write to him today asking for a meeting on around June 16/17 to show him first version of our "report". Must get back to him ASAP to let him know that we have taken the bait of producing a "report".

Got some insights

s_yajaman - 31 May, 2010 - 09:27

 Spoke to an ex IR friend.  He gave me some insights into this.

a. Railways core job is running trains.  They don't think of anything else - no last mile nothing.  

b. They don't like commuter trains because they are bleeders.  They are bleeders because of the absurdly low fares they charge.

IR will be interested if they can be part of an SPV.  SPVs are not constrained by some of these policies.  You can charge higher fares.

One option is to make an SPV with GoK, BMTC, IR, BBMP as partners (all stakeholders).  GoK led by IDD or Transport Minister tells IR that we want you to run CRS on these sections and we will pay you for the train and track usage.  SPV recovers this from passengers via higher fares and offering last mile connectivity (BMTC/KSRTC buses, autos, BMRC if there is a Metro station nearby).

Leave it to IR and they will run a destined-to-fail service.

He offered help in linking us to the Railway people in case we needed that.

Srivathsa

Realistic conflict theory

idontspam - 31 May, 2010 - 10:35

 He offered help in linking us to the Railway people in case we needed that

We havent heard the railways side of the story. I am sure they will have something totally contradictory to tell on a CYA basis.

Anyways, with IR & GoK behaving like the Rattlers & Eagles of the Robbers Cave Experiment we need to really set superordinate goals in the demand report so they come together to acheive this goal for the people.

Mr Madhu - meeting report

silkboard - 21 May, 2010 - 05:57

Instead of a boring log, let me first write the highlights

  • The feeling when leaving his room - high energy guy, should work more with him.
  • Not so good - he spent first 20 minutes telling us about various transport projects, around that CTTP map. By the time we told him that we live and breathe this stuff, and know that PRR/ORR/Metro Phase 1/2, Corridors and Railway map by heart, we had already lost 20 minutes.
  • Good - shared details on execution problems, current state of things on commuter rail, and called in a few more relevant people to the meeting.
  • Output from the meeting - we need to hand him a report.

As things stand today, the cost sharing arrangement between GoK and SWR is a simple one - GoK pays for the rakes, SWR operates them. Other cost sharing options being considered are - state pays for the track widening, SWR operates commuter trains on new bandwidth.

But, there does not seem to be a clear operational plan with local/commuter focus. Idea (due to existing regulations)  is that SWR will operate the trains. With long distance transportation being focus area, we are not sure if SWR can give commuter rail the needed treatment, especially when city will soon get used to high quality operations like the Metro. We thought Mr Madhu gets it (that leaving it to IR/SWR alone will either lead to delay, or may not gve the city a quality commuting product). Now, how to create a structure where city gets to share operations (via a PPP, SPV, whatever) of commuter rail, Mr Madhu and Railways will be in the best position to think of legislations or changes to jurisdictions.

All in all, nice to meet IDD chief, high energy guy, lets get back to him to show that we are not one-meeting wonders, and we are real backers of CRS.

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