INDIAN RAILWAYS: Changing with the Times!!

Aanchal Tripathi
MBA (HR) 2008

You take the word CHANGE and the Indian Railways acts as a synonym, in fact they have been labeled as harbinger of Change. The Steam engine, which powered the first rail coach, brought about the industrial revolution. Development rode piggyback on rails. The advent of railways opened the world, inland travel became possible and the world graduated from the agrarian economy to the industrialized economy.

For one and a half century, the Indian Railways has been the principal mode of transport in India. Much more than that, it has become a part and parcel of the country’s socio-economic life, impacting not only its culture and socio-economic activities but also largely influencing our art, history and literature besides unifying the people. The Indians have developed an abiding romance with the railways.
Way back in 1853, wheels rolled on rails on 16th April, where the first ever railway train, carrying 400 people in 14 carriages, covered the 21-mile distance between Bombay and Thane in about 75 minutes. The train took off with a regal 21 gun salute to celebrate the occasion. Much water has since flowed down the Arabian Sea. What started as a system to serve the colonial interests of the foreign masters has, in the last one hundred fifty years, developed into the main vehicle for socio-economic development of a welfare society.
Today freight trains carry over 1.4 million tonnes of originating goods traffic. About 6000 freight trains transport every conceivable commodity like coal, steel, petroleum, fertilizers and food grains. Everyday about 8520 trains carry more than 13 million passengers over 63000 route kilometres of railway track crisscrossing the country.
The planned growth and development of the railway system started from 1951. In the last 150 years the increase in terms of route kilometres and rolling stock was significant but not outstanding; while during the same period passenger traffic increased by 360 per cent and revenue-earning freight traffic by 550 per cent. These staggering figures will show how much conscious effort has been put in to improve the productivity of the assets and modernization of technology.
Looking back, some of the major achievements of the railways in the field of customer satisfaction and development are indeed noteworthy. The first and foremost among them is, of course, the introduction of the Rajdhani Express in 1969, the first train to travel at the speed of 130 kilometres per hour, revolutionizing the concept of train travel. This trend continued with the Shatabdi Express making its mark in 1988 with a high speed of 140 kilometres per hour. After a wait of over two decades, the 16.45 kilometres-long Metro underground railway in Kolkata was fully commissioned. Spanning from Dum Dum to Tollygunge, it provided an immense relief to thousands of daily commuters in the city. The Konkan Railway Project, the 760-km broad-gauge railway line from Roha to Mangalore touching four States has been another landmark. With 1800 bridges and 88 tunnels, including a tunnel as long as 6.5 km—it has already been hailed as the project of the century and its completion in 1997 was a fitting tribute to the Golden Jubilee anniversary of the country’s Independence. The Project Unigauge was launched on April 1, 1992 to develop the backward regions and to connect important places with broad gauge network. So far about 13000 km of metre gauge and narrow gauge have been converted to broad gauge networks. This was a big leap forward to the mantra of "one country, one gauge". Another such unifying factor is the Computerized Reservation System, which at present covers 97 per cent of the reserved passenger population. At present, this facility is spread over 758 locations and it is even available where there is no rail link like Srinagar, Port Blair, Panaji and places in the North East like Shillong and Gangtok.
On top of all the impressive statistics what comes out is the change of attitude in the last 150 years—a feeling of concern for the common passenger. During the British era, there were just four classes in a train—First, Second, Inter and Third. After Independence, not only the Third Class was abolished but a number of new options were also provided—3 Tier, 2-Tier and Chair Cars, suiting everyone’s choice and pocket. The introduction of air-conditioned coaches brought about a new degree of comfort in travel during the summer and winter months. Even in 3-Tier sleepers, cushioned berths were provided and the days of wooden planks were over.
If we look at passenger coaches, the state of changes will be clear. Before 1950, we had only wooden coaches, which were very expensive to maintain, and which often got telescoped with each other during accidents, affecting the safety of the passengers. Moreover, those were only fit to travel at a maximum speed of 96 KMPH only. In 1949, the Integral Coach Factory was set up in collaboration with a Swedish concern to manufacture anti-telescopic metal-bodied coaches. Since then, more than 170 designs of coaches have been developed. The new coaches have drastically reduced causalities in train accidents and the speed potential has gone up from 96 KMPH to 140 KMPH. Now with the upcoming light weight high speed fire-retardant Linka Hoffmann Busch (LHB) coaches from Germany under manufacture at the Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, the Indian Railways’ speed with attendant comfort and safety is going up. We have also seen the introduction of high capacity power cars and Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs). Now coach interiors are being designed with improved fittings and features to enhance their crashworthiness and reduce the impact of accidents. On the wagon front, we largely inherited 4—wheelers with vacuum brakes. These have been steadily replaced with 8—wheelers with air brakes and improved track loading density. The freight trains at 100 KMPH are now underway.
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE IN INDIAN RAILWAYS:
An organization can undergo both planned and unplanned changes. I would be restricting the focus of this assignment to planned changes. Planned changes can be of two types according to the Burke-Litwin Model of Change, we all have studied:
a) First Order Change: Linear & Continuous, Transactional in nature.
b) Second Order Change: Multidimensional, multilevel, discontinuous, radical change involving reframing of assumptions about the organization and the world in which it operates, its transformational.
In case of Indian Railways, the planned changes are:
a) First Order Change:
· Doubling of railway routes,
· Rail road kms expansion.
· Phasing out of steam engines.
· Replacing Diesel engines with electric engines.
· Metre gauge to broad gauge with electric engines
· Electrification of routes
· Tird class accommodation abolished
· Introduction of AC 2 Tier and Ac 3 Tier coaches.
· Introduction of Railwway Catering
· Outsourcing of Maintenance operations to private vendors.
· Replacing 4-wheeler with 8 wheeler wagons.
· Replacing open wagons with BCX wagons. Etc.

b) Second Order Change:
· Usage of IT in Railways, RAILTEL service
· Calcutta Metro Mail
· Setting up National Rail Vikas Yojna
· Expansion of Railway Zones from 9 to sixteen.
Among 2nd order changes which have happened, PRS is most radical.
The stimulus for change can be indentified in fdifferent facets oof Indian Railways.Some of these are process complexities, technological factors, competition, customer satisfaction and world trends.
The Change: as a result of these stimuli for change,a pilot project consisting of a few popular trains implemented at Ne Delhi in Nov.1985 which came out to be successful ad was well received by customers.By May 1987, the entire new Delhi Reservation was computerized. The Passenger Reservation Software is given the name Integrated Multi-train Passenger Reservation System and consists of 2700 sub routines.
Extensive trainings was imparted to the Railway employees to use the new radically changed infrastructure. NOT re-trenchment but Re-trainig was given, resulting in huge change in the skill sets of the existing workforce in the front-end applications.
It is to be noted that there was no political resistance to the implementation of PRS. Infact, the then government was all for PRS. The main resistance was the ORGANISTIONAL, in the form of protest.
Passenger traffic increased by 40% in the decade of implementation while routes expanded by mere 2%.More customers due to geographical proximity due to PRS.And in the end Satisfied Employees and Customers.
In the last 150 years, the Indian Railways has become a major instrument of social change. Now the trains criss-cross literally from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and the remote and inaccessible North-Eastern parts of the country are coming up on the railway map. The stage is rightly set for the culmination of 150 glorious years of the Indian Railways and to mark the beginning of more glories with a renewed pledge to maintain its primacy as well as viability in bulk transportation of people and goods and to give a fillip to ever-growing trade, commerce and industry. The Indian Railways rededicate itself to the task of meeting the growing challenges of bulk transportation apart from meeting the strategic requirements of the nation. Railways is no longer function in a monopolistic market: they often face stiff competition from both Road and Airways today. To maintain its competitive advantage Railways have to look within, invest in its Systems of HRD and its most important resource, the employee who oils the machinery of IR each and everyday.