Indian Railways at the

crossroads

MembersManu Jacob Sabu

Swetha Ramakrishnan

Neha Malhothra

Aasha J

Siddarth Ala

Surendra Prassana R

Damisetty S S D Anudeep

introduction

• Indian Railway was the largest railway network

under a single management in the world.

• Indian Railway was called as the life line of India

• Indian Railway was also the largest employer of

the world.(1.6 Million people as per 2003

• Only Department that present a budget to the

Parliament Separate from the annual general

budget

history

• The development of

Indian Railway had its

roots in the 1800s

• The British East India

Company and British

Company and British

Colonial Govt. were

credited with starting a

railway system in India.

• The first commercial passenger train ran from

Bombay to Thane on April 16 1853.

• British introduced a system to promote

construction of railway lines.(Guarantee

System)

• Under this system the company constructed

railway lines in india was given a guarantee of

five percent return per annum on the capital

invested.

• By 1870 india had total track coverage of 4000

miles.

• By 1880 the coverage was increased to 9000

miles

• 1890 The British government passed the

Railway Act, to govern the construction and

operation of railways in india, By the begging

of 20th century coverage was expanded to

25000 miles.

• (1 k/m = .621 miles)

• After the independence in 1947, the railway

systems and lines has to be changed due to

the partition.

• The during 1950 the zonal grouping was done

with first the Southern Railway.

• By 1980s Indian railway introduced

computerised ticketing and online reservation

service at New Delhi

• In 2000 The official IR website was Introduced.

• 1981, Train fell of to

Bagmati River in the state

of Bihar. One of the

biggest accident Reported

Operations of Indian Railway• Indian Railway operated as a department of the government with

the minister for Railways being the highest authority.

• The Railway Budget was presented in the Parliament before the

general budget.

• The Indian Railway relied on three sources of financing for

operation, (Budgetary support, Market borrowings and Internal

sources).

• It provided a number of benefits to its employees and their

families, like free education for children in railway schools and

colleges, free medical aid,travel concessions.

• Indian Railways played an important role during times of

calamity

The Issues

• The organisation is too

large too show flexibility in

adapting to the changing

requirements.

Safty• The main resources for accident were either engineering or maintenance

faults or what was called as “Human Failure”.

• It is because the operation of IR started since 1880s so the tracks and

bridges were 100 years old.

• Human error is an importent factor because the train drivers and staff worked

long hours and at odd times

• The working conditions too were quite bad and the often did not have basic

facilities.

• Some other factor for issues are obliged by Indian Railway since equipments

purchase was made from government run factories and their was no

guarantee on its quality.

• Unlike most developed countries unauthorized people were not allowed to

come near the tracks, but in india its easily accessible.

Competition From

Roadways and Airlines• Due to the fright the Passenger traffic fell from 80% to 20% in

early 2000s.

• The flight charges were reduced to attract more business.

• The rate of the economy class in flight were matched with the

first class of trains.

• The traffic volume ratio 1:4 during independence was reduced

to 4:1 during 2000s.

• Some of the other factors affected Indian Railway rates were

:Bureaucracy and operational inflexibility, high operational

costs, Huge debt and Huge Pensions and other benefits.

Towards a better Indian

Railways• Privatisation is one of the

ways, it can be partial or

complete.

• The Indian Railway system

can be broken into several

smaller units that take care

of specific functions like

track maintenance,

operations, booking. These

smaller units can be

supported with private firms.

• HUB & SPOKE system can be implemented,

this system let’s the Indian Railway system to

reduce the Operation Cost.

• This system allocates tracks for private users

like the Airport allowing private users to use

the service and operate.

• Restructuring of Railway Board to Make it

more relevent to the current economic

requirements

Organization Structure of Indian Railway

Thank You