IRTS — Part 2
India’s rail is not only large but it is also very old. It creaks along at an impressive 25 kms an hour on average. About the same speed as an average cyclist on a level road. (I have seen estimates that put the average Indian road to be about 12 kms an hour.) Not just creaks along but the trains are bursting at the seams. And I am not talking of the Mumbai locals, impressive though they are in their own right as the silent killing machines.
India has to have a modern rail network which will move people and goods faster and cheaper. Yes, cheaper. The cost of moving from Mumbai to Kolkata is not merely the cost of the ticket. There is the cost of the 40 hours on even the fastest train. There is the cost of the heavy cross-subsidy that goods traffic pays for passenger travel. This makes shipping goods by rail artificially more expensive than road transport. This makes shipping goods more expensive and thus we consumers end up paying more. The roads get clogged with trucks and we spend umpteen hours driving short distances. We end up breathing diesel exhaust from these trucks. Well, it is best not to go into too much details about the dysfunctional system — it is too depressing.
Now here come the objections.
It is too expensive. Of course, it is expensive. But compared to what? Reminds me of the line: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” The alternative system that we have is really more expensive — it hobbles our economy. We have to upgrade it one day. Doing so now before it is too late is a better strategy.
Douglas Adams’ story “Sifting through the embers” is a cautionary tale that should be understood by all. You will eventually have to pay. It is better to recognize that and put a bit right now or else you will have to pay a lot more later and you will get a lot less in return when you pay later.
Our people cannot afford it. Not doing something that will have overall beneficial effects just because every one and his brother won’t be able to afford it immediately is flawed socialist thinking. It means that we should we content with a dysfunctional system even though putting a better system in place will make the economy more efficient which will raise our productivity and increase our aggregate production which in turn will increase the incomes of people enough so that they will eventually get out of poverty. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think that it is idiotic thinking to not consider the dynamic effects of a change.
It will take too long. Again flawed thinking. Man wanted to learn a foreign language. Teacher says you will have to invest 2 years of your time. Man says, that is too long. So teacher says, “Well, you can put off learning and two years hence, you will still not have learnt the language and it will still take you two more years to learn. It’s your choice.”
As I have argued, it is inevitable. So the sooner we get started, the better off we will be in the present and in the future. Indeed, the future will be much better if we get the thing now, rather than later.
Yabbut what about the poor. I think that the communists should continue to nurse the poor since they derive their living out of sucking the blood of the poor. Not very PC but that is the truth. The reason we have so many poor is because of socialism. But let’s not talk of that evil right now.
The current system does (or does not, depending on your point of view) deliver whatever it can to the poor. The new system does not have to immediately displace the existing rail system. In fact, it will gradually replace the old system. The new system should be built next to the current lines on the same land owned by the railways.
Vision
Like the man who eat all his meals on yellow banana leaves, India always uses outdated ancient technology. For once, India should aim to use the best. And using the best — even if initially imported — will help us learn how to make the best. We need to have the humility to say that we need to import stuff that we can’t make today. We need to have the pride which makes us want to take the imported stuff and improve upon it so that others will look to us when it comes to the technology. We need to have the courage to make big plans.
We need to move beyond the myopia of the politicians and the idiocy of the generals wanting to arm themselves with nuclear subs and missiles and the greed of the peddlers weapons of mass destruction.
We need vision more than we need resources.
Next time I will continue on this topic and propose that the free market can deliver what I am talking about and how the transition from a dysfunctional state-owned rail system, we can transit to a truly modern efficient integrated (that is, rail, bus, car, and air) transportation system.
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Good blog that you have got here folks! All the best..
Atanu,
When you talk about “Too expensive” and “People can’t afford it” as objections to your idea, you dismiss them as if they are not relevant. If an IRTS is built, but the ticket prices are too expensive and people do not buy tickets (because they cannot afford it), then the system is doomed to failure. This is not a fear of large projects or socialist thinking - the project must be financially justifiable. Who pays for what and how much should be clarified in your next post. If you want the government to pay for it (this being a public good), we should also remind ourselves of all that can go wrong with that.
Comment by Eswaran — July 22, 2005 @ 3:18 pm
Hi Atanu
Eswaran has a valid point: this has to pay for itself, and we don’t really know if it would. Faster trains will probably be much more expensive. It might be nice if you could have faster trains for the new middle class of India and slower ones for the poorer people, but obviously you cannot have them running on the same track. So it raises an interesting question: if the trains ran twice as fast but cost four times as much to ride, is it worth it to the average Indian?
Comment by Michael H. — July 22, 2005 @ 8:10 pm
Two things: big nations rarely have very high speed trains. In the US, unless I am mistaken most trains travel at 60 mph or almost 100 kmph, not much higher than that. Moreover the cost of travelling by train over a given distance is almost the same as travelling by flight, both having their inherent advantages and disadvantages.
The Bullet and TGV are the glory of smaller nations like Japan and France respectively. In fact the US does not even have the best highways in the world, with rarely a road that does not have an upper speed limit, unlike Germany or nations in the Middle East.
The Indian government is taking the view that the average speed of trains needs to be improved for freight, where it is currently a princely 22 kmph. Accordingly a high speed freight corridor is being worked on with Japanese help. This would be laid along the Golden Quadrilateral. But yes, passenger trains can also increase in speed.
For the Chennai-Delhi route for instance, flights would still remain the best option.
Comment by Kiran — July 24, 2005 @ 9:26 am
If we are to have better rail, we should be thinking about competing in an open market. What use is it for us to sell services for peanuts when we have tigers to feed?
Most Indians are now demanding better wages or they walk. So why not put pressure on the industry at a govenment level and get some money out of our IT and outsourcing industries whilst we can, and whilst it will do some good for India. As you say yourself, what use is our I.T. Industry when it all moves to China. Most blogs point out the fact that India is getting les of the outsource work, yet we invest in more I.T. Education. I.T. does not grow food, does not move people does not do much for India, it is only to be American slaves that the Industry exists.
I say its time the Industry paid its way, time the Taxes were raised and time India got a backbone again.
That is unless you are like the monkey and like peanut, or like the American and like yellow leaves.
You only get one life friend.
Comment by Vkay — July 25, 2005 @ 6:47 pm
the fact that none of the four readers above had chosen to comment on the very first item on your list is, what shall i say, telling. and your postponing your own views on the issue seems to indicate the general consensus on what’s needed ( and can be delayed).
in my view it’s ‘inevitable’ that india educate all its people now,in order to avoid the largest number of potential speedbreakers on its path to true ’superpowerdom’, later.
Comment by kuffir — August 15, 2005 @ 4:06 pm
The need for creation of social and physical infrastructure is undeniable. However, i would tend to agree on greater government effort only on the first 2 issues - education and more sustainable sources of energy.
There are many facets of rail transportation that need to be improved before going in for any more massive keynesian projects. The very first is that prices have to be responsive to the market, which means increasing passenger fares and reducing freight rates. The money gained by the increase in passenger fares should ideally be put into creation of greater infrastructure, most importnat of which is digital signalling systems to increase the safety of rail networks.
Unnecessary roadblocks to creation of better airport infrastructure should be removed.
The administered market in fuels should be replaced by a free market. Remove cross-subsidy. Let people buy petrol and diesel from anywhere in the world. This will raise the diesel price again, thus giving advantage to rails.
Comment by Prakash — August 17, 2005 @ 4:25 pm
I am not sure if we need trains that go faster, I am more of the opinion that the railways needs to cut out unnecessary stops.
For example the average time from Bangalore to Mysore by Rail is 3 hours. But by cutting out most unnecessary stops one train does it in 2 hours and 20 minutes(including mandatory slowing down at all junctions/stations) . The fact is, most folks travel from Bangalore to Mysore, not to all those intermediate stops that are encountered.
As much as the railways should plan for higher loads and speeds(which might reflect 10, 20 years down the line), there is a crying need for efficient utilization of current resources, to serve immediate needs!
Comment by Prasanna — November 7, 2005 @ 6:02 pm