Shakur Basti demolition was necessary to get Indian Railways on track
Indian Railways — the nation’s largest transporter and perhaps among the biggest landowners (4.6 lakh hectares of land) — has been the usual punching bag for being "extra-populist" in every Rail Budget.
The slamming is justified in name of depleting railway coffers for more than 17 years now.
Sensing an urgency to start a turnaround, when the Indian Railways turned a "realist" and tried to maximise potential of its own realty assets, the case here being the recent demolition-cum-eviction drive at Shakur Basti in the capital, the national carrier was again at the centre of public criticism. And this time it was being urged “why the railways can’t be humane”.
Can railways still afford to be in a "populist trap"?
Certainly not, when the CAG has slammed it for derailing projects worth Rs 1.07 lakh crore and over 480 projects are running behind schedule. Most of these are stuck in land disputes and investors are not getting attracted to railway realty as its commercial exploitation is not guaranteed. The investment potential in railway projects is to the tune of Rs 1.5 lakh crore, but far from achieved.
Land for any organisation is a big asset to monetise.
These vacant land tracts are waiting for funds for railways to lay additional tracks, a new facility for train operations, or a passenger amenity. The railways still have about 46,333 hectares of land lying untilised or left for projects. Of these, about 915 hectares is encroached countrywide. Once freed, it would be enough to kick-start a few stuck projects. The state of encroachments marring railways big-ticket projects is countrywide problem. You name a city and number of jhuggis will be in the range of 5,302 in Mumbai to 46,693 in Delhi. Calcutta is second with about 23,791 jhuggis and Pune is also not far behind with about 8,609 such squatters on prime rail land.
In Mumbai, about five hectares of land encroached have derailed the pace of key projects like an approach road to Bandra Terminus from Western Express Highway; an entry road to BDTS from Kherwadi side; laying of sixth line from BCT to Borivali due to encroachments at Goregaon and Malad; and a foot overbridge between Kandiwali and Boriwali held due to encroachments at Poisar Nala.
In the eastern side, encroachers are delaying laying of extra lines to streamline rail operations for Siliguri, Jalpaiguri and Haldibari area.
There is double whammy for railways as not only the land gets encroached first, to clear it from squatters, the states demand a rehabilitation and relocation package. Odisha has demanded to clear some land tracts in Bhubaneswar area. See even in Delhi’s case, state deputy CM Manish Sisodia had sought a five-year extension for the Shakur Basti eviction exercise. In that case, who will bear the cost of cost overruns of delayed projects?
Even at encroached Shakur Basti, a passenger terminal worth Rs 150 crore is waiting to start off. The proposed terminal will decongest New Delhi and Old Delhi stations. Most importantly, railways' own punctuality has slipped to dismal 80 per cent, which means one-fifth of the trains are arriving late at destinations. Reasons are simple, the rail tracks are overcrowded with squatters, who not only are an operational hurdle, but risk their lives daily by being so close to rail lines. In an event of an unfortunate derailment, the houses "almost constructed on the tracks", will hit the shanties dwellers first. But perhaps, the politicians, who only need these slum dwellers living dangerously along the tracks for day of voting, care hardly in that direction. But as a senior railway official had once put it, “Railway land is first choice to establish a vote bank and if the state and Centre have the same political leadership, then you are forced to turn a blind eye, else face the music – early transfer.’’
And there are environmental issues too, prompting National Green Tribunal to intervene to clear tracks of human waste. In the Delhi Cantonment area, gangmen are not able to maintain the tracks because of the human excreta on them. Faced with a situation where tracks are in such a slippery and unhygienic state, speed restrictions become a norm while entering every big city. The net result – operations loss as instead of six trains passing in one hour, just four will pass through that particular track, often delaying the transportation of goods and services, eventually losing its freight to the fast-paced road sector.
The Shakur Basti demolition drive was not the first the railways has done. Why go outside Delhi? In 1984, almost 300m on both sides of the track near Delhi’s iconic Tilak Bridge was reclaimed for capacity augmentation works, while a similar exercise was undertaken in far-off Mumbai in 1999 all without much fuss.
Today, both lines take almost 70 per cent of the train load and that would not have been possible without new lines and augmenting rail infrastructure as one enters big rail terminals. A few years ago, the then divisional railway manager (DRM), Malda division of Eastern Railway on a routine inspection found to his horror a pucca brick building coming up just above plinth level on railway land. Locating a bulldozer meant for railway work nearby, he lost not time to get the structure promptly demolished. On the local Mastaan’s complaint that he had not been given enough warning, the DRM replied that he too had not been given any advance notice before the land shark had begun his unauthorised project on railway land!
It is often said that political discussions will have been missing in Rail Bhavan to do the turnaround. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that railways can be the drivers for India's economic rejuvenation, along with highways and aviation, is the will missing from Rail Bhavan this time or from our political class elsewhere, derailing railways in its own yard?