Railways: Choice and Competition — VII

Arranging for the logistics that the passenger demands is a Herculean challenge especially when he insists the quality must be high, but he wouldn’t be responsible for misuse of the facilities. Also remember, the contractor would be cleverer than the contract giver, whatever process you apply.

The standard caveat applies. Once on the train, passengers complain about amenities, and I am talking about amenities on the train, not issues like punctuality. Most complaints are about cleanliness, food and safety, though a few others are also sometimes thrown in. For instance, in this day and age, especially on the better trains and in AC-1, AC-2 and AC-3, passengers expect mobile charging points. On the better trains and in LHB coaches, mobile charging points do exist (remember what I said earlier about the time required to replace ICF coaches by LHB ones).

But you hear two kinds of complaints about mobile charging points. First, their design is silly. They are up there, out of reach, near the electrical lines, and there aren’t enough charging points. Second, the points don’t work. The design should indeed be better and has a lot to do with IR not looking at design from a passenger perspective. As I said, the electrical lines are up there, near the top of the train and the lazy option is to have charging points near those lines, instead of dragging them down. Once this has been done, you need to wait for the coach to come in for an overhaul, before you can redo them. This is relatively minor.

But why don’t charging points work? To pinpoint it a bit more, why do charging points usually work on Shatabdi Express, but often don’t work on long-distance and overnight trains? These are points meant only for charging mobiles. They aren’t points for charging any sundry electrical gadget. But passengers don’t always understand this. Bed-warmers, immersion rods and even electrical kettles are plugged in. There is a circuit breaker at the end of the coach. When this happens, the circuit breaker trips and the charging points don’t work throughout the coach, not just where the offence has taken place. Because of the fire hazard and concerns over safety, you now understand why these charging points are often switched off during the night.

There is a solution, but that too has to wait until the coach comes in for a substantial overhaul, or until design is taken care of in new coaches. Instead of a circuit breaker at the end of the coach, have a circuit breaker inside every charging point.

The simple point is, amenities come at a cost and misuse of amenities is conditional on passenger behaviour. Take the case of wi-fi on coaches (not wi-fi on stations, which is simpler). Wi-fi on trains can be provided through towers alongside the track. But in such cases, the wi-fi service will be intermittent. There aren’t towers everywhere and trains pass through tunnels and other inhospitable terrain. To ensure continuous wi-fi service, you need to do something on the train itself, which essentially means installing a satellite receiver in the power car. That has an installation cost of Rs 2 crore and an annual rental of Rs 50 lakh for satellite transmission.

Notice that there are two power cars attached to, say, a standard Rajdhani Express. This doubles the cost. If only one satellite receiver is installed, you will get the signal in AC-1 and this will become progressively weaker as you move to AC-2 and then to AC-3. Such wi-fi already exists on ER Rajdhani.

But why should IR offer it free? It can indeed be outsourced. However, the entity to who it is outsourced will either charge, or look for other sources of revenue. Don’t miss an obvious point. Those other sources of revenue, including advertising revenue outside the body of the train are easier if the rake is fixed, not if the rake is variable.

Incidentally, all LHB coaches are equipped with instruments that tell us what the train’s speed is and what its real-time location is. This is a simple passenger demand and ER Rajdhani already has it. This is easy to replicate.

You will legitimately argue, these aren’t the most important passenger amenities. What about cleanliness and food? Do realise that IR rarely provides food departmentally now. It is outsourced to contractors and is sometimes provided by IRCTC, which also often outsources to contractors. Ask yourself four questions.

First, is it possible to get three meals for Rs 250 anywhere? Second, should food in its present table d’hôte form be offered to all passengers, irrespective of whether they want it or not? (There are estimates that 20 per cent of this food is wasted.) Or should one instead switch to à la carte mode, where there is choice, and passengers who don’t want the food aren’t charged?

Third, the moment there is food that is not eaten, usually dumped near the toilet area, there will be rats and cockroaches. How do you eradicate these? No doubt you have called pest control and used fumigation techniques at home. Therefore, you are also aware that if fumigation is used, say in a coach, it has to be closed for 24 hours. Rarely does IR have this luxury of coaches that can be spared for 24 hours.

Fourth, if a table d’hôte kind of standardised fare is to be provided through contractors, can you ever ensure quality? At best, you can stipulate norms about inputs used and have occasional checks on the output. There is a problem also with the tendering process, the awarding of the contract. No matter how strict your technical conditions are to eliminate undesirable awardees, after the filtering process is over, you have no option but to award the contract to the person who bids the highest, in terms of receipts to IR (the big hotel chains aren’t falling over backwards to handle catering on trains, not in the present form).

Contractors are always cleverer than people who award contracts. Here is a real story from the 1980s, from Guwahati. At that point, the Saraighat Bridge across the Brahmaputra had not been built. There was an IR line up to Amingaon on one side and Pandu on the other. Passengers had to cross the river by ferry. Since this ferrying was IR’s responsibility, the ferrying contract had to be awarded. Three kinds of items were ferried across: passengers, freight and livestock (in parcel vans). Historically, there was a lot of passenger and freight movement and very little of livestock movement.

One prospective ferry operator quoted very low rates for passengers and freight and a very high rate for livestock. Since these passenger and freight rates were significantly lower than competing bids, the contract was awarded to him. How did he make his money? Simple. From two stations beyond Amingaon (so that it didn’t become obvious), he booked 100 monkeys on the railways to two stations beyond Pandu and made them travel back and forth. What he paid as fare to IR was more than neutralised by the fortune he reaped on ferrying them back and forth across the Brahmaputra. There was a scandal of sorts.

You might think of better means of devising the contract, but a contractor will always be clever. That is the reason I think à la carte mode, without a single contractor, is far superior. Let the passenger have choice and pay for what he/she wants.

Because of the word constraint, I will leave it dangling here and continue next week.