Since 2012, six out of every ten rail accidents in India have happened because of mistakes by or the negligence of railway staff, according to a study by NITI Aayog.
In the year to 31 March 2017, 66 of the 104 consequential rail accidents were attributed to the failure of railway staff according to Indian Railways data. And in the three months to 30 June, eight of 11 accidents were attributed to the failure of railway staff.
On Sunday, three top Indian Railways officials were ordered to go on leave and three more suspended after a report on the Kalinga-Utkal Express accident on Saturday that has so far resulted in around two dozen deaths blamed the negligence of railway staff.
Since 1960, Indian Railways has seen growth in infrastructure, expenditure, ridership and freight, but it has been steadfast in terms of accidents: roughly one every three days.
Safety on the Indian Railways network is the end product of the cohesive fusion of its myriad parts. Over 700,000 people work on safety-related operations at the country’s largest employer, according to Indian Railways’ response to a Parliament question.
A small slip by one of them or a single flaw in the 66,030 km track crisscrossing the country can affect one or more of 10,773 locomotives, 63,046 coaches and 245,000 wagons, jeopardising the 23 million passengers and three million tonnes of freight that the network carries every day.
Railway accidents happen due to several reasons.
An incorrect signal, a mistake or an act of negligence by one of its staff directly associated with the running of trains, deficiency in tracks, a rash act by one of the millions of road users, an irresponsible act by a passenger who carries inflammable goods. Added to these are the acts of sabotage.
Indian Railways claims safety is one of its main focuses, and while that may be the case, several worrying gaps point to action not matching intent.
For one, there’s the 16 per cent shortage in safety staff. As of 1 April, the total number of vacancies in safety staff was around 124,201. And this number has been growing steadily over the decades.
The shortage means that others have to work more and harder. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a loco (locomotive)-pilot (engine driver) said, “Our duty hours range from 12-16 hours a day, and then, there are the inhuman conditions in which we work. No toilets, no lunch break and engines have no seats.” “How do you expect us to give our best,” he asked? He adds that the government has failed to install toilets in all locomotives.
To be sure, Indian Railways’ safety record has to be seen against the backdrop of the growing scale and complexity of its operations.
“The pressure of freight and passenger trains doesn’t give us enough window to carry on repairs. If we cancel trains, freight and passengers are affected,” said a member of the railway board, the apex management body of Indian Railways.
Indian Railways has divided its 66,030 km of the track into 1,219 sections and out of these 492 are running at 100 per cent capacity, in some cases more. Most accidents occur on these over-capacity routes.
Based on the volume of traffic, Indian Railways’ safety record doesn’t look bad at all. “We have done our best. In the last one decade we have brought accidents per million train kilometres (an international standard to measure the performance of railways) down from 0.23 to 0.9 which shows our seriousness towards railways safety,” said Indian Railways spokesperson Anil Saxena.
Indeed, even the standing committee on Indian Railways mentioned the difficulty in finding time for maintenance of assets due to saturation of the current network as a concern when it submitted its report Safety and Security of Railways to Parliament on 3 August.
The committee also highlighted another issue—the fact that there is no “safety department”, which means that the function is overseen by several departments of Indian Railways. It said “inter-departmental differences” could reduce “efficiency, resulting in delayed response and compromises on safety.”
The railway board member cited above admitted that lack of coordination is one of the reasons for accidents and also why maintenance activities are sometimes not undertaken properly.
The committee also noted that Indian Railways faced several constraints while addressing safety issues, most notably the non-availability of funds to create additional capacity and modernise assets.
It recommended timely replacement of over-aged assets, adoption of suitable technologies for upgradation and maintenance of track, rolling stock, signalling and interlocking systems, safety drives, greater emphasis on training of officials and inspections at regular intervals.
Saxena said that for the ageing infrastructure the average expenditure on track renewal is around Rs 5,548 crore per year and this year it has been increased to Rs 9,961 crore. Similarly, safety-related expenditure has been increased every year —from Rs 42,430 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 65,241 crore in 2017-18.
A senior railway ministry official who asked not to be identified said, “We are trying our best to keep updated with the railway safety standards and devices. We have installed systems like Block Proving Axle Counters (BPAC), Auxilary Warning System (AWS), Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS), Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), etc. to aid frontline staff and reduce human dependence.” These systems are yet to cover the entire network.
Former railway board chairman Arunendra Kumar agrees: “The problem in India is not of safety standards but the execution of standards.”
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.