RAILWAY SAMACHAR

SAFETY OFF TRACK - II

It’s always spring time for corruption

The Mumbai suburban railways network kills around 4,000 people annually. In 2008, 4,357 people died along this city lifeline. A majority were mowed down crossing tracks. But, as many as 853, i.e. 20 per cent, or an average of two to three people each day, were passengers who died as they fell off moving trains. In peak hours, coaches are often filled to three times their capacity. Violent jerks can send those precariously perched tumbling to their death. A train part called the "air spring", which undergirds coaches and wagons, plays an important role in preventing these jerks. Air springs are a crucial safety item, vital for reducing jerks, easing load, and increasing the life-span of tracks and rolling stock.

No item, however, even when crucial to passenger safety, is beyond supplier-bureaucrat corruption that has leeched away over Rs 50,000 crore in the past decade. Violating its own rules, Indian Railways has been favouring certain suppliers and purchasing sub-standard air springs.

In 2007, Railways began replacing older kinds of springs, called helical springs, with new kinds of air springs that met international standards. Suburban trains were first selected for the switch because suburban coaches experience maximum variation in load. The new springs will soon be installed throughout the rail network because of ~ at least in part ~ the damage caused by Mr Lalu Yadav's profit-maximising wagon (over)loading policy, which has, along with accounting jugglery, been central to the Railways so-called turnaround story. The 2010 CAG report shows that wagon overloading has more than tripled dysfunction and defects in springs, couplers, draft gears, wagon bodies, track structures, and greatly escalated rail fractures and weld failures. Such is the weight of each loaded wagon today that, according to the report, even additional improved helical springs have not stemmed the damage. The switch to the new international standard spring appears therefore to be essential for safety.

These new springs have, however, arrived in an unwelcome bureaucratic environment, far more interested in kickbacks than quality to ensure safety. The moment the decision to go for the upgrade was taken, the Railways Research Design Standards Organisation (RDSO) instantly swung into action with its favourite licensing game. According to sources, RDSO advertised no "expression of interest" with details of future air spring requirement, something that might attract the most able Indian manufacturers to develop the product. Quite like the spectrum scam's first-come-first-served distribution of 2G bandwidth to chosen companies, RDSO handed licenses to a select group of Indian middlemen who mainly import the springs from foreign companies. As the agents had limited to nil manufacturing capacity, RDSO clubbed them into an undefined special category termed "source under development". How does this differ from RDSO's prevailing (Part II developmental source) category? Officials involved in actual purchase do not have a clue.

Prudence calls for avoiding bulk purchases when there are few credible sources from which to procure an item. However, within two years of the first tender, Integral Coach Factory (ICF) has bought Rs 60 crore worth of safety springs from these agents. From the very first ICF tender in November 2007, irregularities abounded. Though all agents were grouped equally and the tender didn't pre-disclose any multi-sourcing clause, an agent of a US company was given the order at nearly Rs 50,000 per unit higher than the lowest bidder. The ambiguous RDSO category had begun a "divide the pie amongst the cartel" game. Irregularities intensified in the second and third ICF tenders. An Indian agent of a Chinese company was upgraded as a Part II source by RDSO, even though the agent had not fulfilled mandatory service trials for that type of spring. The third tender was awarded at a markedly higher rate to the same agent, even though lower prices from the previous contract were still valid.

In all nine approval letters handed out, RDSO informed agents to "indigenise" the manufacture of the air spring. Highly placed sources have told The Statesman that most of the agents, though, still import the entire spring; exceptions just about manage to assemble the imported parts. Particularly disconcerting to some officials is the volume of low-quality Chinese air-springs purchased. The sources supplying the Chinese air springs being ‘developed’ include Lucknow-based firms presently undergoing investigation for selling the Railways equipments and parts worth hundreds of crores at exorbitant cartel-inflated prices.

Another source said one of approved firms was earlier banned from supplying helical springs due to quality defects. How then has this firm been found suitable to develop the new safety technology? What decidedly betrays the Railways’ alleged concern for safety is a letter written by RDSO in March 2009. It shows the prime beneficiary of new air spring contracts at ICF as the biggest quality defaulter! On one hand RDSO has been threatening the firm with dire consequences because of defects of a ‘serious nature’ for over two years, and on the other it has no qualms about rewarding the firm by upgrading it to a valued source.

Replying to a question in Parliament about thousands of deaths along the Mumbai network, the Railway Minister has stated that it is an issue of congestion, and therefore a state government issue. Congestion, limited infrastructure to enable safe passage, and apathy are certainly the primary factors in most deaths on the Mumbai network. And the state government is culpable. But, rampant corruption in procurement suggests that the ministry too needs crack down on the corruption its officials seem to be mired in which contributes to the problem.

The ‘tak-tak’ sound that emanates from coaches rolling along the Mumbai lines is the sound of compromised air-springs straining under the weight of commuters. Few hear in it a haunting noise that might contribute to the next passenger falling to his death.