Serious action required; otherwise complete Railway system will collapse

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The Govt must take action against the Member Engineering and other senior officers concerned who were involved in giving initial clearance to KRDCL

The Government must take action against the concerned Member Engineering, Railway Board and other senior officers who were involved in giving initial clearance to Kerala Rail Development Corporation (KRDCL)’s absurd proposal for building the line from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod as an “elevated rail corridor”.

This is not the first time that Railway Board has approved proposals and backed projects and practices that are patently based on unsound science and engineering.

In 2010, Railway Board failed to initiate action against then Member Engineering and Member Traffic despite Delhi High Court judgment that concluded, based on a detailed examination of the records of Railway Board, that it was ‘crystal clear’ that these officers had colluded and scuttled proper consideration of then chief engineer, Northern Railway Alok Kumar Verma’s proposal that the alignment on flat gradient of 1 in 100 (on which construction of the Katra-Banihal section was being carried out) should be scrapped and the alignment with steeper gradient, which he had developed for the line should be adopted.

Fifty-three months later, in Feb 2015, when the Expert Committee under chairmanship of Dr E. Sreedharan unanimously recommended that the above alignment should be abandoned and the alignment he had proposed should be implemented, Railway Board took a united stand to reject the report of the expert committee.

Railway Board took this action despite knowing that Board had approved similar 1 in 100 alignments for six other strategic National projects in similar Himalayan terrain in the North East and Uttarakhand in the same manner of approving alignments without proper feasibility studies as done for the Kashmir Rail Link project.

All these alignments were approved in the period 2002-10. The members of the Sreedharan Committee did not know the above facts about the other projects in Himalayas, but Railway Board knew because after Verma was posted on North East Frontier Railway (where 5 of these projects are situated) he had highlighted this point more recently), in an entirely different field of activity.

Railway Board vigorously defended its utterly flawed standard for microbial quality of drinking water for almost five years (2014-2019) in a PIL before Delhi HC, Indian Railway knowing fully well – one would expect this from a body of professionals – harmful effects such a defence would have on public health. He had recommended changes in the standards back in 2012.

Because of direct involvement of A. K. Verma in all above matters, He have full knowledge of the facts when he say that Government of India should take effective deterrent action against concerned higher officials of Railway Board to stop such careless handling of matters of grave importance.

What happened on the Kashmir Rail Link and other rail projects in Himalayas and Drinking water quality matter, this is not a secret now and anyone can see his posts on Twitter where he writes continue on very crucial subjects on Railways..

The aggregate progress of construction on the 7 projects in Himalayas is about 20%, though the projects were sanctioned 10 to 20 years ago. On only 3 projects, progress is 30 to 50%. On the lines in Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Nagaland progress is in the range 2 to 10% only.

How very unprofessional and unethical

The Preliminary Feasibility Report, which was prepared by SYSTRA under Alok Kumar Verma’s guidance, was submitted to KRDCL in Mar’19. In May’19, after he left, SYSTRA submitted another report, Feasibility Report, in which key recommendations of the first Preliminary Feasibility Report were reversed.

The Preliminary Feasibility Report prepared by Mr Verma, which KRDCL has tried to conceal from the Govt, said:

  1. That the cost of construction of the line could be quite high (about 4 times the cost of a line for 120-140 kmph) because of the uniquely unfavourable terrain and conditions in the corridor.

  2. If the line is built on Broad Gauge instead of Standard Gauge, “traffic on the line can be expected to increase substantially while the cost of construction would also reduce substantiallly”.

  3. With Standard Gauge “the line might not prove to be financially viable”.

  4. The decision to build this line on Standard Gauge as a completely standalone line needs to be reviewed.

  5. If the line is taken to the outskirts of the cities, more of the alignment will fall in the Mid-Highlands with the result that “because of the unfavorable landform of alternating sequence of hillocks/mounds and valleys/lowlands, the alignment would have substantial tunnels, higher viaducts, cuttings and embankments which could impair stability besides increasing the cost of construction”.

  6. Overall assessment of the entire alignment is that it is prudent and advantageous to carry the line nearer to the sea rather than nearer to the Mid-Highlands in almost every aspect from cost and stability of the line to access to the most densely populated core of the cities.

  7. Construction of this line as a standalone line is likely to seriously impair utilization of the line’s capacity.

  8. The alignment nearer to the coast that is proposed has been designed “to drastically cut down land requirement, cause less dislocation for the population in congested areas, cause least hindrance to the movement of people and vehicles on the roads, highways and to boats and ferries in the canals and backwaters“.

The same SYSTRA who had submitted this report reversed all its above recommendations under pressure of KRDCL to justify Standard Gauge and carry the line to the outskirts of the city at Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Chengannur, Kotayam and Kochi/Ernakulam. All this done without giving an iota of justification.

How very unprofessional and unethical.

KRDCL touts in the media that SYSTRA is a Paris-based company, but in reality (as far as this project is concerned), it is a 100% local company in terms of knowledge and technical expertise available with the company, and its opportunistic professionalism and work ethics.

“Government must take serious action concerned officials of Railway Board taking incorrect decisions as per his advise”, said a senior railway officer. “Otherwise soon enough complete railway system will collapse in India”, he said.

#IndianRailways #Kashmir_rail_link_project #chenab_rail_bridge #public_policy #rail_projects_in_Himalayas #safewater #NotoIRMS #kerala_200kmph_line