12 years later,rail project yet to get on track

Indian Railways moves at snail’s pace when it comes to security. A project to modernise train signalling between Ghaziabad-Kanpur — the treacherous stretch that claimed 10 lives in twin collisions on Saturday — is yet to be completed even after 12 years of its approval. Despite intervention by the PMO and Finance Ministry,Railways achieved a meagre 30 per cent of the project even though the feasibility report and funding were approved in August 1997. And now,the modernisation project is headed for a burial. “Project is lagging far behind the schedule and just 30 percent of the physical work has been completed so far,” said a Finance Ministry letter to the Railway Board Chairman last week. It said the project could be called off mid-way unless “corrective steps” were taken “on priority” as lender,Germany,has threatened to withdraw from the project. Till October,the project authority had managed to utilise Euro 25.88m out of total Euro 94.59m provided by Germany,through Kreditanstalt Fur Wiederaufbau (KfW) bank,in 1997.

But the Railways remained indifferent. Its apathy is borne by the fact that though it gave “indicative milestones” at a progress review meeting in June,it failed to take “matching action”. In October,it sent an official for a similar meeting who was not linked to the project.

The KfW money was meant for modernising the section’s signalling system to enhance safety in train operations as the signalling and telecom infrastructure in the section — one of the heaviest in Indian Railways — had outlived their life and are obsolete. It included installing Solid State Interlocking and Automatic Block Signalling,laying Optical Fibre Cable and upgrading the Mobile Radio link between Ghaziabad and Kanpur. The project,scheduled for completion in December 2001,was initially delayed due to differences between KfW and the Railways over the technology to be used. Later,KfW’s consultant De-Consult and the Railways squabbled over suitability of bidders.