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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (5424)	8/2/1999 4:47:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12475

India's antiquated railways-BBC reports Indian Railway website: indianrailway.com indianrailway.com By Vipul Mudgal of BBC's South Asia Regional Unit A fatal train collision at Gaisal in eastern India has once again drawn attention to the weaknesses of the world's largest railway system. The state-owned Indian Railways carries 11 million people daily over more than 100,000km of track. The overwhelming majority of passengers travel in lower class carriages that are overcrowded and in many cases out of date. Much of the rail network still depends on outdated signalling system that is manually operated. Statistcally low risk A journey by rail nevertheless remains one of the cheapest and most efficient ways of travel throughout India. Statistically the number of fatalities in train accidents remains low when compared to the number of people killed on the road. Yet there have been an increasing number of rail accidents over the last decade. More than 300 people died in three separate accidents last year. That pattern seems to have been repeated this year. A recent example was in July, when 17 people were killed and over 200 injured after a passenger train ran into a goods train near Delhi. Flawed enquiries Collisions such as this are the main cause of rail accident deaths in India. Many of these accidents were due to signalling faults. India's worst rail disaster was in 1981 when a cyclone blew a train off the tracks into a river in Bihar, killing over 800 people. In India, every accident is followed by an official inquiry. But lack of investment in the railway infrastructure means little action is taken to enhance passenger safety even though most inquiries raise serious questions about railway management. Investment overdue Different probes have concluded that accidents are due to signal failures - both mechanical and human - as well as derailments, collapsing bridges, poor safety procedures at level crossings and even bomb explosions. Officials say many accidents could be prevented by adopting modern technology and reducing human involvement, particularly in signalling and switching of tracks. Already steps have been taken to develop optical fibre-based and digital communication signals at selected routes. But a full conversion of mechanical systems into state of the art technology is bound to take a long time and require heavy investment. Railway task force The Indian railways have recently phased out steam locomotives replacing them with diesel and electric engines. But Railway Minister Nitish Kumar conceded during a parliamentary debate last year that routine inspection and maintenance work had been hampered because of a lack of funds. However, senior railway officials say that investment in safety related work has been stepped up in the past two years. A high level task force, involving representatives from telecommunications, electrical, mechanical and traffic disciplines, was set up early this year to select modern technology for the railways. Officials say that the project should take three to four years, if politicians did not delay in taking vital decisions on which technology to use. That means there is no guarantee that such accidents will not recur in the near future. news.bbc.co.uk