Is the commercialization of a public engineering organization complete?

This a heartfelt appeal to the Indian Railway’s top management to wake up and prevent the complete commercialization of a public engineering organization that is the lifeline of the nation.

The latest railway accident of Utkal express (19^th August 2017), resulting in death of 23 and removal of ME, GM, DRM, CTE,  Sr.DEN etc. is a glaring example of what has gone wrong with the Indian Railways over time. Such accidents, which are primarily designed by humans by commission or omission, hurt deeply. Ironically, once again, there are no signs of addressing the core issues, but rather at dousing the fire, and killing the symptoms, rather than the disease.

One just need to talk to one of the 13,00,000 + railway employees and arrive at a list of ills in the organization. Thse range for erosion of dedication and sincerity, poor recruitment policies, over staffing, over-emphasis on passenger amenities at the cost of safety items, etc. The list is endless and everyone has his own unique understanding of the problem. But, is this not common in the case of any organization? What gets consistently missed in this long list is the recognition that a primarily engineering organization is getting progressively commercialized! The people at site have been punished, and accountability fixed to the highest levels in the organization. This is like any commercially run professional organization, and the mission seems to have been accomplished in making railway staff responsible for their actions. But this leaves one wondering — will these actions prevent the second accident of Utkal Express at the same place?

Some facts. Trains run on steel rails, and the steel rails have to be continuous. One of these rails developed a crack which was detected at noon (12:00 hrs). Till 17:46 (more than 5 hours later) when UTKAL express ran off the rails at this point, the tracks had not been closed down for repairs. It was being debated upon between operating managers and their engineering counterparts—should we close the track or not! No one realized that if there is no track, there are no trains to be run.

The response! On well recognizes that accidents of this magnitude do not happen by the fault of one! Firstly, those who faltered in fixing the track have been taken up. They should be. Everyone in the hierarchy – ranging from all those at site to the one in the Board should be sacked summarily, as they failed to recognize the importance of their work. They had completely missed the fact they are playing with the lives of public, and their jobs are a small part of it. I fully stand by the sacking of PWI to the Sr.DEN! Knowing the guts of system, I can draft their list offences in exact detail identifying how they contributed directly to the accident. Each of them were aware of the incident in realtime, but played it safe personally – to make railways unsafe for the public. Why was the rail cut without the block, and why was the banner flag not put up, are some of the failures for which they are directly responsible. This makes the people responsible for maintaining the track responsible.

Secondly, and more important—- who made them do that! For this, the removal of the DRM, CTE, GM to the ME becomes justifiable. They did not know of the incident in real time, but by their repeated actions and inactions they were responsible for the actions of their men!

However, we have all been silent about one part! What about the traffic department (operations the holy cow) who have refused to allow time for maintenance, or the engineering departments heads who could not put enough courage in their men to stop a train from running on a broken track! A key and important part here has been played by traffic department, which has cleverly become a hero here (while being the key instigator behind the crime). The full brass of operating people needs to be taken up similar to engineering and fixed. That is, those involved with the incident in realtime (section controller, Chief controller, DOM) and those behind the scene who had given the courage to behave the way that they did (which includes the CFTM/CPTM/COM the Operating equivalent of CTE, and the Operating equivalent of ME at the board level i.e., MT).

To make the role of operating more obvious one needs to know that the allotment of time for maintenance is an age-old problem in railway working. It is a tussle between the engineering and the operations since the railways started operating. One of the primary agendas for cross functional incharges (the DRMs and GMs) has traditionally been to maintain this delicate balance. Time had to be allowed for maintenance, at the cost of punctuality and moving higher traffic! And, there were times when this was fought tooth and nail, when people believed in the importance of their work. In the Indian Railways, the key problem has always been that while railways is a complex engineering institution, ironically in our case it is run by social science professionals. With time, the engineering has become secondary to operating/commercial interests, and result is obvious in this accident.

My prior experience with railways makes me fear that engineering will once be punished, while the operating will once again go scott free, making the organizations transition from the engineering to commercialization complete. This is not the last Utkal express accidents, but only one of the many which keep happening increasingly in the railway system, while it looses its engineering sheen!