Indian Railways Signalling Systems at Risk

I will continue to share with you some analysis by thought leaders expressing concerns on safety critical systems including Signalling Interlocking Application and Train Protection & Warning Systems. International Rail Safety Experts have already hit the panic button, they expressed that Indian Railways Signalling Systems are antiquated and new electronic interlocking systems are poorly designed and tested.

Here is the expert analysis provided by Railway Signaling Expert Sandeep Patalay. You may want to use the media influence to change the behavior of bureaucrats and technocrats in Indian Railways.

Analysis of Failures of Solid State Interlocking Signaling Systems

1. Lack of domain Knowledge in Signalling and Traditional Route Relay interlocking Systems, This creates a technological gap between the software programmers and the Domain consultants. This leads to Errors in software, which might lead to unsafe failures of the system.

2.Increasing the complexity of the System by Employing distributed architecture, which is difficult to validate and verify and difficult to maintain, thus leading to very high time repair.

3. Extending the working scope of the Interlocking systems for monitoring and other non-Interlocking functions, which leads to degraded performance of the system.

4. Employing Non-Formal Interlocking principles instead of traditional RRI Principles leads to software complexity. For Ex: The Geographical method needs every system that is installed for new Yard needs validation, which is not practicable.

5. Since the software and hardware is so complex, complete test of the system is not possible and most of the faults are revealed at the field Installation stage or during normal working of the system in field. The software is to be changed for every yard , the software structure should be in a generic form, but we seldom see a generic form and this the stage errors creep in.

6. The lack of standardization in the railway working principles and the core Interlocking principles, the software developers are forced to do changes in the software for every yard in Different railway zones, this is the time that errors in the software creep in.

7. Because of the above said reasons the Signalling Interlocking systems have failed to create the necessary confidence in the railway operators. Because of this reason the Solid state Interlocking systems have become unpopular.

If we examine broadly the reasons for failure and lack of reliability and maintainability that are forced by the designers are as follows:

1. Lack of standardization of interlocking principles, every railway zone in India has its own set of rules and principles which are conflicting with other railways, this makes the life of the developers difficult because they have change their systems settings and software accordingly.

2. There is no standard book or reference available describing the core interlocking principles, since these rules are only known by the people working in this domain.

3. Increase in the complexity of the software leads to difficulty in testing, since most of the Interlocking systems are sequential machines they are error prone are very difficult to test.

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Prakash L. Pant

Darmstadt, Germany

BRAVADO OF A RETIRED BUREAUCRAT

A REAL EXPERIENCE BY A RAILWAY OFFICER

Recently, there was a bold pronouncement by Shri Pratyush Sinha who retired as CVC of India saying that 30% of Indian people are utterly corrupt whereas 50% are fence-sitters (border line cases). This statement is not only unfortunate but also self-serving, coming as it does from a person who had all the opportunities in the world to serve the cause of transparency and honesty within the government establishment in this country. Regretfully, Indian bureaucrats have a tendency of suddenly becoming wise and courageous soon after their retirement after decades of selfish, supine and silent existence merrily enjoying the fruits of the system they decide after retirement. There is a marked tendency on the part of many to try and gain publicity by criticizing the institution about the re-formation of which they have not done any thing during their service.

Shri Sinha was heading CVC for a number of years and during this period also nothing particular was done to distinguish between the actual corrupt within the bureaucracy and those who have been hauled up for their forthrightness, honesty and courage. Most of these officers belong to either the Jr. Scale or Sr.Scale or the JAG. Where as the actual decisions of import are taken at the secretary/Jt. secretary level of the government. In this country almost any government official can be charged with dis-honesty if his/her bosses like to frame him/her. It can be safely said state that the majority of the cases going to the CVC belong to this category of officers who are more wronged then being wrong themselves.

Shri Sinha should be asked as to what actions he has taken to curb the tendency of the Commission to blindly prosecute this kind of officers instead of catching the black sheep in the higher echelons of the civil service. Any case sent by a department to the CVC for prosecuting an officer routinely gets the nod of the CVC without any effort on the part of mandarins there to pin the actual culprit or to find out the motive behind framing of the hitherto brilliant and honest officer. No wonder, the CVC and vigilance have an abysmal record of conviction hundreds of officers have got their careers ruined because of inefficiency, incapability, sadism and total lack of will on the part of the CVC babus to distinguish between corruption and bonafide mistake.

As young officers are full of zeal to work, youth and vigour most of them fall easy prey to the scheming and cunning superiors who get annoyed due to a variety of reasons. Therefore majority of the officers suffering from the wrath of seniors and foolishness of the vigilance apparatus belong to those in their first few years of service. The judiciary has been routinely pointing this out and trying to salvage the lives and careers of honest officers.

Therefore, it can be safely concluded that organizations like CVC and CBI have only helped those senior and experienced bureaucrats of this country who want to mint money and plunder the public wealth, to do it systematically by diverting the attention and blame to junior and inexperienced officers who at times are only innocently carrying out the orders of their superiors.

By terrorising honest, upright and out-spoken officers the CVC as well as the CBI have greatly harmed the cause of transparency and integrity in public life in this country. Sadly, Mr. Sinha has only been a silent spectator to this phenomenon of hounding of straightforward officials by his ignorant, inefficient and utterly incapable establishment for years. He could have made a lot of difference to the lives of thousands of officers and their families by catching those who deserve to be caught and helping those who can take this country forward, but he choose not to do either and remained a blue blooded civil servant working at the beck and call of his friends in the rarefied environs of the ministries located in the national capital.

About two years back I had an occasion to meet the concerned directors and senior officers of CVC to discuss a case. During the course of discussion all the officials of the CVC agreed that the case in question was completely without merit and an innocent officer was in fact being prosecuted due to professional rivalries within his ministry. But nevertheless they had no option but to go ahead with the case as it was forwarded by his ministry and CVC lacked any competence to analyse the fact of the matter.

Under these circumstances I have a few pertinent questions to ask to Mr. Sinha.

1. During his entire tenure as Commissioner at CVC, in how many cases did he rescue the careers of bright and honest officers who have been maliciously cornered by the bunch of thugs manning the corridors of power?

2. Is it not a fact that the CVC and all its vigilance paraphernalia has become a factory to produce timid, sulking, dithering and incompetent bureaucratic eunuchs?

3. Is it not a fact that long years of prosecution and lack of understanding by the vigilance official is unfair and counterproductive so far as transparency and integrity in public life in concerned?

4. Is it not a fact that many of the CVOs in various departments become utterly corrupt during and after the tenure as CVOs?

5. Is it not a fact that most honest, upright, sincere and efficient officers do not like to become vigilance officers because of the unfair games practised by the vigilance machinery in the central government departments?

6. Last but not the least, is it not a fact that the man-on-the-street along with the umpteen number of simple government employees hate the vigilance and CBI just like leprosy or cancer which either has a very long and painful cure or has no cure at all?

To sum up I will only say that in this country most of those who are prosecuted by CVC or with the help of the CVC don't deserve to be prosecuted at all and those who deserves are not prosecuted at all and hence lead a respectable life.

THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN BY A VICTIMISED RAILWAY OFFICER.

Voilation of Article 13(2) of the Constitution of India by Railway Board by not providing alternate employment to medically unfit candidate

To

The Editor

Railway Samachar

Sir/Madam,

I Prabhu Nath Singh (Roll no :4029512), having good vision 6/6, a single OBC Candidate Selected by Railway Recruitment Board ,Thiruvanthapuaram on 23/03/09 for the Post of Traffic Apprentice (Category number 111) of joint Employment notice No 02/2008 dated 12/07/2008.

I got an offer of appointment dated 03/08/09 from Sr. DPO, Palghat Division, kerela. I was called for medical examination on 24/8/09 at palghat Railway Hospital. I was declared medically unfit by sr. DMO Palghat.

I was sent for re medical examination to the CMS Railway hospital Palghat through Sr. DPO, Palghat with the support of a medical Certificate issued by office of the Civil surgeon cum CMO Bokaro Steel city who declared me medically fit for the post as my eye sight is 6/6 as required for the post TA. Again I was declared medically unfit by Chief Medical Superintendent Railway hospital Palghat.

It is my fundamental right to get a job According to the Constitution of India article 16. Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment.—(1) There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State.

(2) No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them, be ineligible for, or discriminated against in respect of, any employment or office under the State.

So, I applied to the CPO, Southern Railway, Chennai Requested for Appointment in alternate Category as per: CHAPTER V, MEDICAL EXAMINATION, Section B-Medical Examination of Candidates for appointment to Non-Gazetted Railway services and of serving Non-Gazetted Railway employees.

As per clause 509. Introduction:-(1) Medical examination of candidates for appointment to non-gazetted Railway service and for periodical medical re-examination of serving Railway employees includes-

(i) general physical examination, and (ii) vision tests

(2) The details of these examinations are given below. Detailed guidelines explaining procedures of medical examination and specific diseases affecting fitness of staff are given in Annexure III to this Chapter. All medical officers conducting medical examination should get themselves familiarised with these guidelines.

Note:-(1) The General Manager may relax the provision in the case of candidates for temporary appointment to the posts in the non-gazetted service including class IV and labourers' grades, other than posts falling in Group A (medical classification), as given in para 510 (1) below.

(2) General Managers shall have the authority to consider request from candidates(both technical and non technical), who fail in prescribed medical examination after empanellmant by RRB, for their appointment in alernate category, subject to fulfilment of the prescribed medical standard, educational requirement and other eligibility criteria for the same grade post in alternate category. If a candidate for a technical category fails in the medical examination prescribed for that category, he/she may be considered for an alternate technical category if found fit medically for that category, provided he/she possesses the requisite qualification and there is a shortage in that category.

(Rly Bd's NO. 99/E(RRB)/25/12 dt 20.08.99(RBE 211/99))

But they replied me that the Railway board have decided to discontinue the policy of providing alternative appointment to the medically failed empanelled candidate selected through RRBs/ RRCs for any group by Railway Board’s letter No 99/E(RRB)25/12 dated 25.05. 2009.

This Railway board letter is Violating the Article 13(2) of the Constitution of India.

Article 13(2) of the Constitution of India prescribes that the Union or the States shall not make any law that takes away or abridges any of the fundamental rights, and any law made in contravention of the aforementioned mandate shall, to the extent of the contravention, be void.

So please look into the matter and consider my request for the appointment in alternate category. I need your benediction in my endeavour to get into Indian Railway.

For this I will be highly obliged to you.

Thanking you.

Your Faithfully

Prabhu Nath singh

STUDY POINT,

Hotel Yamuna Villa,

Chas, Bokaro Steel City,

Jharkhand, 827013

Ph: 09955080486

Railways skirt their own Kashmir fiasco

NEW DELHI : Improper planning and lack of accountability have sabotaged the 345-km Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project. The national project with immense strategic importance was inaugurated in 2002 and fast-tracked to connect the Srinagar valley with the rest of the country. However, the past 8 years has seen only 10% progress in key sections and losses and contractor claims running into thousands of crores. With alternative solutions and safety concerns repeatedly ignored by Railways leadership and hidden from the minister, the engineering fiasco has bungled on.

There are three sections in question. The Qazikund-Baramulla (119 km) stretch in the valley is the only one completed, but not without the stench of corruption. According to a retired Member of the Board, the Rs 2,461 crore spent by January 2009 on this flatter section included needless expenditure on a raised embankment and hundreds of culverts, planned only for the benefit of contractors. This expenditure, by now three times what it should have been, has escaped scrutiny due to dramatic problems faced along the other two mountainous sections. The short Udhampur-Katra (25 km) stretch has been delayed by 6 years due to collapsing tunnels. And the most critical Katra-Qazikund (148 km) stretch has barely even taken off, bedeviled by shoddy assessment of the geological and seismic realities of the Himalayas and ignorance of the latest international engineering practices.

At the centre of the controversy is Railway Board Member, Engineering (ME) Mr Rakesh Chopra, involved in the problematic project plan since its inception and responsible for scuttling alternatives. Recent judgments of the Central Administrative Tribunal and the Delhi High Court have found that Mr Chopra ‘time and again’ prevented the Railway minister from learning about an alternative alignment plan for the Katra-Banihal stretch prepared by Mr Chopra’s junior officer Mr Alok Verma. The rulings state that Mr Chopra not only muzzled Mr Verma’s criticism, but also abused power and worked with ‘mala-fide’ intention by transferring Mr Verma away from his project post twice.

The original Katra-Qazikund alignment was criticised as early as 2003. However, it was only in 2007, when Mr Verma made a presentation to the Railway Board, that ignoring the underlying reasons for failures on the ground become impossible. Despite investments of Rs 750 crore and contracts worth Rs 1,000 crore already awarded, Mr SK Vij, ME in 2008, found enough reason to suspend work along the Katra-Banihal stretch and order the establishment of a committee to study the existing and the alternative alignments. In 2009, DMRC chief Mr E Sreedharan also gave his opinion to the committee chairman. Mr Sreedharan strongly criticised the original alignment, which would take another 20 years to complete at 4-5 times the cost and argued that even then the resulting bridges and track ‘would not be stable from a security point of view.’

Mr Sreedharan thereby supported Mr Verma’s alternative plan that sought to substantially reduce not only the cost of the Katra-Banihal route, but also its length from 126 to 68 km, its bridges from 94 to 7, and its tunnels from 64 to 8, by avoiding a serpentine route and instead tunneling straight through the centre of the mountains at a sharper gradient. In detailing his alternative alignment, Mr Verma exposed how the track was being laid along the contours of seismic fault-lines, with tunnels collapsing by virtue of being built on the sides of young mountains vulnerable to landslides.

In its final recommendations, the high-level committee suggested abandoning 75% of the original alignment. However, the committee suffered from politics and failed to mention Mr Verma’s alternative plan or examine the safety risks involved in retaining the parameters of the original alignment. Mr Chopra, who had by now taken over from Mr Vij as ME, immediately administered Mr Verma’s second transfer away from the project as soon as the officer pointed out the committee’s omissions. Today, work along the Katra-Banihal section remains at a stand-still; while the problematic original alignment awaits its serpentine implementation.

When questioned about the recent High Court ruling, Mr Rakesh Chopra, stated, before his retirement, that he is not in charge and that the Railway Board should be contacted with questions. The Board has itself not yet implemented any of the Tribunal or High Court orders, the most important of which, in terms of national interest, is arranging a meeting where Mr Verma can present Railway minister Miss Mamata Banerjee with his alternative alignment plan so that the minister can make an informed decision on the future of the bungled project.

With both Mr Chopra and the Board continuing to prevent Mr Verma’s viewpoint from reaching the minister, the only question that remains is not for the Board, which even the High Court has found to be compromised, but the minister. Is Miss Banerjee herself interested in learning about a view, supported by Mr E Sreedharan and ex-ME Mr SK Vij, which claims to offer a cheaper and safer solution and explains why the present Kashmir Rail link project plan is doomed to fail?