India’s growing rail investment fails to avert disaster

On Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to flag off the first departure of a new Vande Bharat (“Salute to India”) express train service connecting the western state of Goa with the commercial capital Mumbai via video hookup.

However, the launch was called off after India’s worst rail accident in decades, a three-train crash in the eastern state of Odisha on Friday that killed at least 275 people and injured hundreds.

The Goa-Mumbai Express, the 19th in the prestigious fleet of Vande Bharat services with a maximum speed of 160 km/h, is a sign of increased investment and improvement in standards in the world’s largest railway system since Modi took office in 2014 .

But as rescue workers in Odisha pulled out the dead and injured from damaged trains, Friday’s disaster exposed the system’s dark past beset by under-investment in infrastructure, maintenance and rolling stock.

The length of electrified railway lines in India has more than doubled since 2014, from 21,000 km to over 50,000 km in 2022. The proportion of electrified lines is set to reach 65.8 percent in 2021, higher than France’s 60.3 percent and the UK’s 38 percent. ,

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Ashwini Vaishnav, Railway Minister and Modi’s aide, known for handing over miniature Vande Bharat train models at meetings, was at Goa’s Madgaon station to attend the inauguration of the new express. Instead, he traveled to the scene of the disaster on Friday night to oversee rescue efforts.

Vaishnav said on Sunday that the government’s preliminary findings suggested that the Odisha accident was the result of a signaling error caused by the failure of the “electronic interlocking” system, which helps control the movement of trains between tracks.

He called for India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, the country’s top law enforcement agency, to launch a criminal investigation into the accident.

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The disaster was India’s deadliest rail accident since 1999, when an accident in West Bengal killed nearly 300 people.

Government safety data shows that India has been reducing the number of train accidents since the 1980s. Accidents per million kilometers have come down to 0.05 in 2019 from 2.2 in 1980 and 5.5 in 1961.

But Modi’s opponents seized on the disaster to accuse the government of trying to deflect attention from its failure to invest in the security apparatus.

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Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress, wrote a letter to Modi on Monday alleging that “those in charge – you yourself and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav – do not want to admit that there are problems”.

“The CBI or any other law enforcement agency cannot fix accountability for technical, institutional and political failures,” he said.

Official figures show India is investing record amounts in its railway network – including in safety – since Modi took office.

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Partha Mukhopadhyay, senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said, “With the Indian economy growing rapidly since the late 1990s and 2000s, the Indian budget is looking much healthier and there is more money to spend on the railways.” Is.”

India’s budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year has set aside ₹2.4 trillion ($29bn) for railway capital investment, a 50 percent increase over the previous year.

However, experts have questioned in some cases whether New Delhi is investing in the right places and have suggested that improving the efficiency of railway staff is not keeping pace.

Capital investment data shows a large and persistent gap between what India spends on new lines and rolling stock and what it invests in maintaining existing lines and refurbishing tracks.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

A new safety system introduced last year to prevent collisions had not yet been activated at the site of Friday’s crash.

The overall railway-related deaths in the world’s most populous country are staggering. According to data provided by Indian states and territories, more than 16,000 people died in 2021 due to falls from trains, accidents on the tracks or other causes – although only 100 of these were killed in derailments or collisions.

Swapnil Garg, a former railway official now at the Indian Institute of Management in Indore, said Friday’s accident exposed the flaws that are embedded in India’s railway system despite government investments in infrastructure and technology.

One of the biggest concerns, he said, was that many railway personnel responsible for security had long been under pressure, underqualified and disillusioned.

Garg said, “This is a time of change for the Indian Railways.” “As fast as we’re moving on the technology side — spending money, building new infrastructure — the human resource side is where we’re lacking.”

On Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to flag off the first departure of a new Vande Bharat (“Salute to India”) express train service connecting the western state of Goa with the commercial capital Mumbai via video hookup.

However, the launch was called off after India’s worst rail accident in decades, a three-train crash in the eastern state of Odisha on Friday that killed at least 275 people and injured hundreds.

The Goa-Mumbai Express, the 19th in the prestigious fleet of Vande Bharat services with a maximum speed of 160 km/h, is a sign of increased investment and improvement in standards in the world’s largest railway system since Modi took office in 2014 .

But as rescue workers in Odisha pulled out the dead and injured from damaged trains, Friday’s disaster exposed the system’s dark past beset by under-investment in infrastructure, maintenance and rolling stock.

The length of electrified railway lines in India has more than doubled since 2014, from 21,000 km to over 50,000 km in 2022. The proportion of electrified lines is set to reach 65.8 percent in 2021, higher than France’s 60.3 percent and the UK’s 38 percent. ,

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Ashwini Vaishnav, Railway Minister and Modi’s aide, known for handing over miniature Vande Bharat train models at meetings, was at Goa’s Madgaon station to attend the inauguration of the new express. Instead, he traveled to the scene of the disaster on Friday night to oversee rescue efforts.

Vaishnav said on Sunday that the government’s preliminary findings suggested that the Odisha accident was the result of a signaling error caused by the failure of the “electronic interlocking” system, which helps control the movement of trains between tracks.

He called for India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, the country’s top law enforcement agency, to launch a criminal investigation into the accident.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

The disaster was India’s deadliest rail accident since 1999, when an accident in West Bengal killed nearly 300 people.

Government safety data shows that India has been reducing the number of train accidents since the 1980s. Accidents per million kilometers have come down to 0.05 in 2019 from 2.2 in 1980 and 5.5 in 1961.

But Modi’s opponents seized on the disaster to accuse the government of trying to deflect attention from its failure to invest in the security apparatus.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress, wrote a letter to Modi on Monday alleging that “those in charge – you yourself and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav – do not want to admit that there are problems”.

“The CBI or any other law enforcement agency cannot fix accountability for technical, institutional and political failures,” he said.

Official figures show India is investing record amounts in its railway network – including in safety – since Modi took office.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Partha Mukhopadhyay, senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said, “With the Indian economy growing rapidly since the late 1990s and 2000s, the Indian budget is looking much healthier and there is more money to spend on the railways.” Is.”

India’s budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year has set aside ₹2.4 trillion ($29bn) for railway capital investment, a 50 percent increase over the previous year.

However, experts have questioned in some cases whether New Delhi is investing in the right places and have suggested that improving the efficiency of railway staff is not keeping pace.

Capital investment data shows a large and persistent gap between what India spends on new lines and rolling stock and what it invests in maintaining existing lines and refurbishing tracks.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

A new safety system introduced last year to prevent collisions had not yet been activated at the site of Friday’s crash.

The overall railway-related deaths in the world’s most populous country are staggering. According to data provided by Indian states and territories, more than 16,000 people died in 2021 due to falls from trains, accidents on the tracks or other causes – although only 100 of these were killed in derailments or collisions.

Swapnil Garg, a former railway official now at the Indian Institute of Management in Indore, said Friday’s accident exposed the flaws that are embedded in India’s railway system despite government investments in infrastructure and technology.

One of the biggest concerns, he said, was that many railway personnel responsible for security had long been under pressure, underqualified and disillusioned.

Garg said, “This is a time of change for the Indian Railways.” “As fast as we’re moving on the technology side — spending money, building new infrastructure — the human resource side is where we’re lacking.”