Dragon versus sloth bear: Can a new rail budget help India's trains catch high-speed China?

There was a time when China looked to India's British-built rail network with envy. Shortly after Independence, Indian Railways had 53,000km of tracks on its network, as opposed to just 22,000km for its big neighbour up north.
Freight traffic, meanwhile, was about the same with 44 billion km travelling on Indian tracks as compared to 39 billion km in China.
Six decades later, almost nothing looks the same. India has managed to lay barely 13,000km of tracks since Independence, while China's results-focused government has put together a nearly four-fold increase in its network, with 91,000km of tracks and plans to build another 30,000km over the next seven years.

While freight traffic in India amounts to 601 billion freight tonne km in 2011, China has managed a handsome 2,947 billion freight tonne km. To top it all, Chinese Railways (CR) even makes a profit.
Indian Railways, according to a handout on Tuesday, notched approximately Rs 24,000 crore in losses over the last fiscal alone. Much of China's advances are down to reforms that were carried out in the 1990s

After years of reliable, but not stellar, operations and bottom-lines, CR recorded a loss in its transport side in 1993. This prompted former premier Zhu Rongji to establish a reform plan focusing on three key areas - introducing market principles, spinning off non-core activities, and inducting new technologies - that would end up revitalising the titanic government arm.
"Although China's railways, like Indian Railways, are still part of the ministry of railways, it has placed increasing emphasis on commercial focus and financial performance," said a World Bank Report that compared the development of the two railway operations in 2003.
"CR has undergone major restructuring since 1999, a vertical disintegration that has separated noncore activities and cut CR staffing rosters by half, down to 1.7 million employees."
While Chinese authorities do possess considerable advantages in working with a government that is less prone to populist concerns or land acquisition problems, other efficient measures from eliminating cross-subsidies to staff cuts and shedding of extraneous operations have allowed Chinese Railways to grow almost exponentially.
The difference appears most stark in the high-speed rail sector. After considering plans in the 1990s, China began operations on its high-speed rail network in 2007 and by 2012, it had about 9,300km of track that could handle trains at speeds of 200km/hr or higher.
In India, where the fastest train runs at 150km/hr and 'expresses' run at an average of 120km/hr, genuine high-speed lines remain a distant dream.
Meanwhile, China's ability to extend across the span of its vast territory - such as the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which travels all the way up to the "roof of the world" at Lhasa - effortlessly eclipses Indian Railways' stated plans to connect the track network to border outposts in Kashmir and Assam.

Bansal family happy with rail budget

Presenting his maiden rail budget in the Lok Sabha, railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal received the most affirming thumbs up from his wife and son, who were present in the House to boost his confidence.
Once Bansal's speech ended, the family members - wife Madhu and son Manish – as expected, lauded the minister's budget as "people-oriented".
"I think he has met the expectations of all sections... he has delivered what people expected from him," said Manish with a wide grin.

The family members, who stay in Chandigarh, Bansal's constituency, said they regularly travelled on Shatabdi while travelling to and fro Delhi.
"I have never experienced anything bad on the Shatabdi all these years," said Bansal's wife, hoping for better days for the Indian Railways in the near future.
Manish said he was satisfied with his father's "historic" speech. He said it was a "please-all" budget and he particularly liked the WiFi proposal.
For Madhu though, the "best point" in the budget was the lack of a hike in rail fares.
"That is the most important takeaway from his budget speech for me. He hasn't increased the fares for anyone," she said.
She said she wanted her husband to announce a special helpline for women that could enhance their safety on train.

-Dailymail