When Harassment by Private Bus Staff Goes Viral Government Takes Action; But What if it is by Railway Staff?

Yesterday (29-04-2019) night me and my wife failed to get a good sleep. 

Reason: my newly married son with his wife was travelling back to their work place in Bangalore in train no.16319 'Band Humsafar Express' from Trivandrum Kochuveli Railway station to Bangalore Whitefield Railway station in  3AC coach B1 and they were being harassed by the TTE in their coach B1. He was asking for a fine of Rs.4000 or a bribe of half that because my son and his wife did the gravest mistake of boarding the train from a station not shown as the boarding station! 

To his bad luck, my son never carried much cash in his purse- he is from the new gen who believed the words of the Indian PM in letter and spirit. He likes doing all money transactions online using those Apps and cards! And the TTE had no facility to accept that either in black or white!

They had a valid and confirmed 3AC ticket reserved online (PNR-4503960607). Their ticket was from Kochuveli to Whitefield. Boarding was indicated from Chengannur, the station nearest to our home at Elanthoor and about 100 km north of Kochuveli.

In fact, I had made their return travel booking online using GoIbibo mobile app. We live in Elanthoor and the nearest railway station is Chengannur. My son's wife is from Trivandrum and Kochuveli is the nearest station from her house.

To be very frank, it was very difficult for us to confirm which station would be convenient for them to board the train because of this. During their stay in Kerala, they could be either in Trivandrum or at Elanthoor. If they are at Trivandrum, Kochuveli station is the best for boarding. If they happen to be at Elanthoor, Chengannur station is the best for boarding.

If I take the ticket booking from Chengannur to Whitefield and if they happen to be at Kochuveli, their travel practically becomes ticketless in the Kochuveli-Chengannur section. So I took the ticket from Kochuveli to Whitefield and gave the boarding from Chengannur. Going from my past memories, the railway people never made any issue for such an arrangement. And in the present days of online booking, I never ever happen to notice a facility for changing the boarding point later in any of the online Apps or the irctc website.

A day before their stay in Kerala, it was confirmed that they would be in Trivandrum and Kochuveli is their preferred boarding point. In a way that was convenient as it was the trains starting station.

My son was more informed than me and from Trivandrum he called me to make a change in their boarding station as it was me who did their ticket booking. First I tried to reason with my old man's logic in not doing so firstly because I did not know how to do it and secondly due to the user unfriendliness of the irctc site. Yet reluctantly I made an effort only to be informed that this kind of changes cannot be done if the time is less than 24 hours. I did not understand this logic of the Indian railways! And to be honest, one can never find full logic in several of the Indian rules and regulations!

I tried to reason with my son and tried to enhance his courage to travel with the online ticket that he had already passed on from my side. After all apparently they are not doing anything illegal as per our logic. We had paid the travel cost from Kochuveli to Whitefield and also all the other fees for reservation. The railways as a service provider did not charge any thing for change of boarding point. So we never imagined that this particular thing would be a point for a railway employee to harass the travelers travelling with ticket and reservation!

And that is where we made the grave mistake! The Indian government employees have this great talent of finding the minutest deviations in the rule books if it gives them an edge in making some quick money, both for their employer and for themselves!

To the bad luck of my son and his wife, the TTE did exactly that. He kept harassing them and in turn my son calling me for advise. Me and my wife lost our sleep in turn.

I advised my son to pay whatever the TTE is asking as penalty. My son informed that the TTE is asking to pay a fine of Rs.4000/- (incidentally the total fare from Trivandrum to Whitefield for the two of them in 3AC is only about Rs.3000/-) and he did not have the cash. Then he informed that the TTE agreed for a compromise of agreeing with half that if the money paid is without a receipt.

Dear reader, I felt so helpless and equally harassed as my son who was in the train in the night. My blood pressure went high and also of my wife. I felt this as a bigger harassment than the recent incident that happened to some young men in a  Bangalore bound private bus from Kerala  in one of the luxury buses operated by one Kallada Suresh!

There the physical misbehavior done by the bus staff to a few travelers got viral in the social media and the state government initiated actions against the erring staff and the bus operator.

But here, the harassment is being done by a central government employee with much powers delegated to him by the railway administration of India. They make rules and regulations to their advantage and hardly ever consider that they are also doing a transport service. The travelers in this case is availing a concession from the Indian government facility. What they say is the law of the land!

There is no way for the common man to know because of the arbitrariness of the Indian railway rules. What is the solution if a TTE is doing highhandedness like this to harass passengers quoting illogical rules supposedly existing to his support as made by his superiors?

To our great relief, by this time the train reached Chengannur and the TTE realizing that these people are not going to make any cash payments turned the plates. He allowed them to travel in accordance with their reservation.

My humble submission to the Railways is only this (if at all there exist anyone to hear and do the needful):

1. Consider Kerala as a metro area and allow outbound travelers from Kerala to cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi etc to board from any convenient station of their choice where the train has a stop, provided the ticket charges cover that station also.

2. Consider the full length of the ticket as reserved regardless of the boarding point.

3. Provide adequate training to the TTE to be logical in their approach with genuine reserved passengers and not to harass them to the extent that they are scared of Indian railways for life!

4. Do not make illogical rules, if they exist remove them and make it known to the travelling public.

5. Make the online reservation system logical and more user friendly. (For example: Why this irritating captcha always?)

6. Make arrangements to TTEs to accept payments for penalty, charge differences etc through approved online payment apps. Discourage all kinds of cash transactions in the train. This will help passengers to travel with less cash and more safely. It might also check TTEs accepting bribes!

I do not say the railway keep taking actions against the passenger unfriendly TTEs or staff always. But when they go irrational, it reflects on the railways and also on the government. If the railway superiors realize that well and good. 

If not what we can do? Nothing. After all Indian railway is part of the Indian government and government in India has not yet grown to serve the people. Many in it think they are masters of the public.

If the Indian railway take any positive action from this citizen feedback, we can consider that as real positive act towards good governance!

First Railway Budget of Modi Government Proves This:If There Is A Will, There Is A Way!

Today at around 1.30 PM I could watch  glimpses of the TV news coverage of the first railway budget of July 2014 as introduced by the Railway Minister Mr Sadananda Gowda under the new Indian Union government under  Prime Minister Narendra Modi . I also watched the DD News debate and the PM's address to the nation regarding the railway budget for a few minutes. 

Great! That was my first impression. 

First things first. The DD News and the presenters now appeared much more professional and knowledgeable. It has become more pleasing and acceptable now. (I used to skip DD News earlier!)

The PM's address to the nation through DD News was highly appreciable. For the first time in the last several years, a PM has given his frank clarifications regarding the railway budget after it was introduced in the parliament in a voice and tone that was too appealing with regard to his vision about the future of the railways has to play for the progress of the nation.

Obviously, the Narendra Modi government has begun to show its presence and positive actions!

Later I could see the highlights of the railway budget as it appeared in the online news sites. 

All the proposals are good and progressive.

Some of  those which needs to be specially mentioned are:

1. Proposal for dedicated freight corridor

2. Novel and progressive ideas proposed for housekeeping, security and cleanness including mechanized laundry 

3. Proposal for setting up of the Railway University for skill training in the field of railway engineering, technology and management

4. Improvements in e-ticketing and e-administration with introduction of paperless railway office working

5. Employment generation and use of railways as an economic driving force for India.

6. Thrust for speedy completion of ongoing projects by better administrative follow ups

Together with the rest of India, I earnestly hope this is just a beginning for a better tomorrow for India.

If there is a will, there is a way! That is what this railway budget is telling us!

Best wishes to the PM and his team! 

Inhuman Working Conditions of Indian Railway Loco Drivers: Think about it when You Travel!

Indian Railways being a central government monopoly would perhaps be one of the  whole sole business opportunity that the unconcerned bureaucrats and technocrats associated with the Indian Railways mismanage to the core unwittingly due to various systemic lacunae associated with the whole system.

The railways have a tremendous potential for business enhancement because the demand for its services are much higher than the supply. Unfortunately, either due to incompetency or due to various deep rooted vested interests the railway authorities at the top and at the bottom seem to keep the Indian railway services as a matter of perpetual scarcity. Had they managed it well, it could have provided much more employment than the present in a much more decent manner, besides giving satisfaction to the millions of its users. Indians as a whole would have some thing to showcase and be proud of. But unfortunately it has not been so ever since India got independence.

As a railway user, I would not have felt it as a problem to pay a little more, had they enhanced the quality of services, its availability and its safety.

The railways in India is a monopolistic business directly run as a governmental organization unlike many other government controlled businesses. Once upon a time the telecom business was also a similar governmental monopolistic organization in India. Telecom sector has since been opened up to the private sector. Some how those in power do not want to try the telecom experiment with the railways and lose the power and privileges they have been enjoying even from the British Raj days!

I had written about the Indian railways in this forum in earlier occasions too. When governmental systems try to manage business it causes several challenges and those challenges cannot be addressed with a conventional mindset. It requires forceful people who could remove the lethargy of legacy in government. Unfortunately lethargic systems of people hardly facilitate that. Even those who are part of governance become unaware and helpless to effect changes because the systems blind them from understanding the root causes.

What tempted me to write about the Indian railways again is a news that appeared in the national newspapers a couple of days ago.

The news was regarding the pitiful working conditions of the Indian locomotive drivers. Perhaps this news was a small synopsis of a detailed doctoral thesis paper published in 2013 in the IOSR Journal of Business and Management titled Work Life of Indian Railway's Drivers (Loco Pilots)  authored by Dr Rajesh Ranjan and Dr T Prasad based on their detailed investigative studies. 

I recommend all those who are interested and concerned to have a reading of this research paper for themselves.

It is most unfortunate that the Indian authorities have not considered it to take any appropriate actions to fill up the acute shortage of loco pilots during the past years that the shortage as of now is reportedly to the tune of over 20,000. This has caused the train drivers who drive the goods and passenger trains in India to work much more time on a regular basis than what is humanly possible. It is reported that the heavy work load has made the loco pilots to work on an average 10 hours at a stretch now. 

Instead of enhancing the rolling stock to cater to the ever increasing demand, the authorities have been trying to enhance the use of the available rolling stock (loco engines, passenger coaches, goods wagons, etc) to maximum use, sometimes even necessitating compromise on their maintenance, safety, inspections and replacement of spares. Since they have been adopting a policy of decreasing the manpower for enhanced profits and cash generation, the availability of trained and experienced personnel has been on a continuous decline over the years. This has caused difficulties in using even the available equipment optimally. 

It is all the effect of some foolish management consultants propagating the idea of reducing man power for better business sense that has been percolating the corridors of power slowly in such a way that the conditions that existed at the time of the original proposal is no more valid as time elapsed in years. With some bureaucrats getting the idea later, become proponents of the idea much later when it is warranted the least, we land into a situation of complex and contradictory policies!  Effectively, such a scenario causes the governmental systems to work in an antagonist manner always. The resultant is a non functional government which is under constant ridicule by the informed citizens and facing the ire of the common citizens! Under such circumstances, citizens feel pity about their political leaders who head the railway ministry and keep parroting the verses taught by the officialdom under them as explanations to all the ills of the railways that people keep facing day in and day out! 

Some years back there was a report in the news papers regarding Indianization of imported high power locomotive engines as suggested by some of the 'enlightened' technocrats and bureaucrats of the railway ministry. The foreign supplier was delivering air conditioned locos with much facilities to the loco pilots as was the usual practice as per the international specifications.

But some individuals of the Indian techno-bureaucratic system that manages the Indian railways wrote their expert opinions in the concerned files advising against the air-conditioning. Perhaps that had forced the supplier to charge more for removing a standard facility from their advanced engines in order to Indianize them! Unfortunately such decisions that take place within the system of governance hardly get noticed and the concerned technocrats and bureaucrats are never questioned by any one for their so called wisdom! More over the Indian political bosses hardly have the competence to overrule the recommendations of the techno-bureau-financial expert recommendations always. Virtually more often they are contented to act as rubber stamps giving approvals without the ability to get themselves convinced as the representatives of the common man before they give their approvals or disapproval.

Is it not inhuman and cruel that the loco men and women have to keep entrapped in their engine rooms under hostile environment for hours at a stretch even without the facility to attend the nature's call? 

Who are to be blamed if their human bodies succumb to the tiresome situation and their eyelids close for a few seconds and miss the signals while the engine haul them at tremendous speeds exceeding 100 km/hr? 

Are they responsible or those who sit in cool and comfy cabins to write their own opinions on the files without ever understanding what the railway or the loco are? 

Fatal rail accidents are a common feature now-a-days in India. The railway administration is very keen to penalize the loco pilots for all accidents.

Are they responsible? 

To be very frank, I have never ever imagined in the past that our railway loco drivers are discharging their duties under such compelling circumstances.

I salute them. They are our heroes. But what about those who try to exploit our heroes?

Think about it when next time you travel by the Indian railways! 

Kalka-Shimla-Kalka Motor Rail Journey: An Inexpensive Heritage Rail Experience to Try Out In India!

It was some 35 years ago, I had the first opportunity to travel by the narrow gauge rail line connecting Kalka and Shimla. 

Kalka is a small town in the Pachkula District of Haryana State of India and is about 28 km from Chandigarh- a pre-engineered city of India which functions as the capital of both  Haryana and Punjab States. Shimla is a mountain resort city and is the capital of Himachal Pradesh State. 

Kalka Railway Station in the early Morning Nov-2013

Kalka-Shimla narrow gauge rail line is about 100 km long and is a world heritage declared by the UNESCO. This rail line ascends continuously from an altitude of 656 M at Kalka to reach the 2200 M elevation of Shimla. To reach this 2.2 km height above mean sea level, one has to travel about 96 km through the narrow gauge rail passing through 100 odd tunnels, 900 curves and about 800 bridges.

The Rail Motor at Kalka just before the departure!

One of the best travel delight on this heritage rail line is the unique facility for the rail motor car journey. While decades ago I used the narrow guage rail line for my travel from Shimla to Kalka, I could not enjoy the rail motor car journey at that time. I have been waiting for an opportunity for that and I got it a few months ago when I had to visit Chandigarh to attend my friend's son's marriage.

Rail Motor at Barog Railway Station

The motor car trip was indeed a remarkable experience and was much simpler than I thought. While there are other narrow gauge trains, I was more particular about this rail motor car experience. 

The Rail Motor Car Locomotive Diesel Engine!

It is a single rail coach self propelled by a diesel locomotive engine with 14 cushioned seats considered as first class. It is not air conditioned and for that matter a/c is not essential for this part of the country as most of the time it is cold rather than hot. 

It is the brake of the Rail Motor and not the steering!

One can book the tickets in advance  using any one of the travel portals like yatra, makemytrip or irctc. The rail car that starts from Kalka to go to Shimla is named 72451/Kalka-Shimla Rail Motor and departs at 5-10 a.m and reaches Shimla at about 9.50 a.m. 

View of Simla from Simla Railway Station

In the evening, the same rail car departs from Shimla as 72452/Shimla-Kalka Rail Motor and departs at 4.25 p.m and reaches Kalka at about 9.35 p.m. 

View through the glass window of the Rail Motor Car!

The average speed of this rail motor car is about 30 Km/hr, but the car actually travels much faster. For example, when I traveled by it from Shimla to Kalka, it reached Kalka one hour before its scheduled arrival time! 

Experience the Rail Motor Speed by viewing this video!

Barog railway station about midway is the place where passengers can alight for about 15 minutes for refreshing. 

Tourist Places Information Board at Simla Railway Station!

The fare for a person in this rail motor car is Rs.292/- one way from Kalka-Simla or Simla-Kalka. It is quite affordable for a tourist. The timings are too convenient for any one who visits Chandigarh to spend a day in Shimla. But the taxi fare from Chandigarh to Kalka and Kalka to Chandigarh in the early morning and late evening could be more than three times the rail motor fare!

A View of the Himalayan Life from the Outskirts of Simla!

Simla is in reality very easy to access by rail or by road. The highway connecting Simla to Chandigarh runs almost parallel to the rail line at many places.

The sign board at Simla Railway Station declaring its Heritage!

Unlike other hill stations of India, one important aspect of the Kalka Simla route is its relative safety. The rail line and road are considerably safe as accidents are comparatively much less. Road and rail disruptions during snow fall or land slides are also much lower as compared to other hill station areas of India.

So, if you haven't yet gone to this place, plan your trip soon. And don't miss the rail motor journey!  

The Railway Co-passenger Who Removed the Melancholy from the Mind of the Young Indian Engineer !(Story)

Mr Vinod Bhaskar is not a very successful Indian if success is to be measured in the yardsticks of the present day wisdom of the so-called Indian elitists. At the same time, he is also not a ruined failure by any means. In the eyes of millions of his so-called poor country cousins, he is definitely a very successful young man.

He works in a good Indian banking company as an officer and earns nearly Rs.45,000 in a month. He had never imagined that he would be doing a job in a bank doing and dealing with the money of others like him. He was interested in science subjects in the school and his mathematics was calculus, algebra, trigonometry and the like and he never considered simple arithmetic as any important part of his mathematics. His parents had to shell out considerable money, about five lakh rupees for him to complete his four year engineering degree course in mechanical engineering from a new era private engineering college established by erstwhile landlords of his state in the 1990's. 

He had learnt about theory of machines, machine design, thermodynamics, heat engines, strength of materials and many such things which he earnestly studied scoring high marks in his semester examinations. He was serious in his studies unlike many of his classmates and college mates who got in to the engineering college for spending the moneys of their neo rich parents in style and show. He was hopeful to get in to some job where he could put his engineering knowledge to advanced creativity.

But things did not go the way he thought. When he passed out in flying colors in the first decade of the 21st century, he realized with regret he was not any uniquely trained young man who would be welcomed by the Indian industry. There were millions of young men and women like him who are with engineering degrees and a good majority of them had acquired their degrees in flying colors! 

Indian industry and the Indian government did not know how to use these young engineers who come out with many fundamental knowledge and waiting eagerly to put their knowledge to actual professional use. Manufacturing and production of goods have become a non profitable activity in India while selling of items made in China was much more profitable. Companies who had factories working in the Indian soil have closed their units and began outsourcing products that the Chinese made much cheaper. The Indian government and the Indian industry could not find out the magic of the dragon even while they kept thinking over it for years!

So for Vinod there was no engineering job offer. And his parents were not of the kind of the parents of any of his contemporaries either. Those fortunate Indians have either unaccounted moneys in millions that could be easily diverted for sending their wards to the American and Australian universities for higher education and securing lucrative jobs in MNCs. Vinod was also not the son of any fortunate landlord who owned acres of land near to any Indian cities which could have fetched them millions of rupees from the builders and colonizers or their land mafia agents. Again his parents did not belong to any community or castes listed in the Indian constitution for any preferential government jobs.

But it is totally unfair to say that Vinod was going to be unemployed in modern India. He fortunately had a visionary prime minister ruling the country for nearly a decade and his visions had changed India. Youngsters like him passing out in the millions as young electrical, civil, mechanical engineers are finding fantastic opportunities to get transformed as modern software engineers. They were to cut and paste code lines using the computers and the internet for making additional codes for the same and earn money distributed from the USA. It was a fantastic magical business where money transactions occurred in billions without any visible changes any where. It is the modern business. Too abstract to understand even by the most learned wise men!

Vinod too got such a job in Bengaluru. He was getting Rs 15000 per month in 2008 when he joined the company. He did not like the job. It was not about the heat engines or about the strength of materials. Or for that matter nothing to do with the mechanical engineering that he thought about.  He was making some code modifications for computer games that would eventually to be sold to hook up young boys and girls to computers. Some of those codes could perhaps be promoting gambling in some part of the world. He was not sure. Neither was he sure about the code cut-pastes and re-writing his seniors asked him to do. He and millions like him were however toiling hard to make the digital ocean of the world wide web frothy and chaotic and to dig out the nectar of money from that big chaos. His common sense was not able to give his any satisfactory answers to the question that he was asking to himself. Is this digital technology works taking the youngsters like him away from the real world? Does it bring about progress and solve the human problems? Or is it going to be the modern era opium that would sedate the youngsters and keep them in perpetual illusion? 

Vinod Bhaskar could not come to any conclusion. What he realized with pain was that only these software companies are going to support him and millions of young Indians like him with some monthly income to survive. He did not understand how the money kept flowing to the coffers of these software companies of India from the foreign lands. Neither he understood the economics behind it. But he knew only one thing. It was too boring and tiring a job. He and his colleagues were being used as some kind of slaves. They are called software engineers or techies. But he knew, he had no such background to be called a software engineer. He was never ever trained in the field of computers. He was trained as a mechanical engineer! Yet they paid him some money regularly for his computer work that he performed without understanding anything about it.

So, he wanted to get out of it to the real world. But soon he realized that it was not going to be that easy. He now is branded as a software fellow and no one was willing to consider him as a mechanical engineer any more. More over, all the placement companies thrived only because of the software companies.

But in another two years time Vinod was fortunate to get out from his software company. He was picked up by a private bank as a front line officer. They hard bargained for his monthly salary and finally agreed to make a monthly payment which was ten percent more than what he was getting in his previous software company. The new job in the private banking company was also not any thing concerned with his engineering. But at least it gave an opportunity to change, a change that he soon realized as more painful than the earlier one. 

Bhaskar has now totally settled to his fate. He soon realized that he was a fortunate engineer of India. At least he had some job which fetched him some regular income to survive. He is called an officer of a new wave bank. This bank selected people like him to be posted as the front line officers who manned their branches to deal with the individual customers with their small savings and small transactions. For handling these small people small time officers like him are deployed with small time salaries. The small moneys of the individual Indians in millions accumulated as billions of rupees for the bank. And the bank made big deals with big corporate entities using these accumulated billions. And to settle those big deals they needed highly clever managers with high IQs and such big managers they recruited from the elite management institutes and paid them several times more than what they paid their front line officers. The new wave banks of India have been allowed to do play in the financial markets of India in the liberalized economy of India in this manner. 

Bhaskar fumed when he came to know about such class differences in his banking company. He too was an intelligent engineer, but his bank's top brass gave little credence to that. For them he was not having a degree from an elite institute and hence not eligible to become any of their big managers to draw big salaries!

But there was nothing that he could do. His father had told him about the class inequalities that India perpetuated after independence. Now the clever leaders of India are making other forms of inequalities. He was also learning some thing more from his few years of work experience. Cheating of some form was essential for doing any business successfully in his country. Honesty has no place and value. At least that was what he was experiencing.

He was slowly losing his self esteem and confidence. He was becoming melancholic. He wanted to meet some guruji or spiritual saint to discuss his problems. Fortunately there are several of those successful gurujis in his land. But of late, after reading and hearing the news about  the adventures of real life many of these swamijis are supposedly having he was in a dilemma. The conventional image that he had about a guru in his mind was not inspiring any more.

It was in 2013 while on a train journey that he finally met a person whom he has now placed as his guru. The guru who brought him out of his melancholy and his fuming anger to one and all for reasons that he was not in a position to explain. 

Bhaskar's new found guru did not wear any such mystic attires. In fact he was decently dressed and looked like any other white collared working class Indian. He was older by a few years. There was nothing extra ordinary about his co-passenger, except that he had some thing that made Bhaskar to get attracted to him after he began talking to him. 

Talking with him during the few hours of journey in the train was felt as if highly refreshing for Bhaskar. But his co-passenger did not talk about religion or spirituality or any thing of that kind. But he showed a keenness to listen to Bhaskar earnestly and also shared a few of his experiences of life with a kind of honesty that was too touching for Bhaskar. What was appealing was his genuine affection to another human being without the all pervasive selfishness that Bhaskar has been used to. 

Then the time came for both of them to alight the train and catch different trains. They were to part ways in another couple of hours. They had another few hours of togetherness in the station.

Bhaskar felt the urge to smoke and have a drink that he used to do in such occasions. He usually went to a restaurant located in one of the lanes adjacent to this railway station where he could eat, drink and smoke comfortably. But this day, he had his stranger co-passenger who by this time had become much more than a friend to him. And he felt awkward to disclose to his new friend about his usual way of time pass. But anyway, he told him about that.

To his surprise, his friend agreed to accompany him to the joint. Later, he became all the more comfortable when his friend agreed to share a drink and a smoke with him along with the snacks. At least this new guru of his was not one who gave any sermon about these so-called vices!

In the hotel, while continuing their talks about life and life experiences of various kinds, his new guru politely convinced him not to order for more drinks and smoke and taught him about the need for restraints in life. He was not against Bhaskar to enjoy simple pleasures of life once in a while but gently reminded him to think about the folly of drinking and smoking and many such so called pleasures. And Bhaskar was getting his point. Drinking and smoking did not actually gave him any pleasure and yet he was doing it. There was no reason why he did it. His ordinarily looking guru while sharing a drink and a smoke with him for the first time made a lasting resolve in his mind that day. He would use his self determination power of his mind and perhaps would not spend money for this wasteful expenditure that only caused only some discomfort and not any pleasure any way. He realized for the first time that his guru was right after all, and that too while in actual practice. 

He learnt many things. There was perhaps nothing that he could do in a situation that he is. There is nothing he could achieve by being sad about his condition. He is not alone in this world who is facing situations like this. There are millions and billions who are worse than him. Perhaps getting a job of a mechanical engineer also would not have solved his problem. He could find things that are not to his liking even then.

He cannot change the environment. He cannot change others. He cannot change the policy makers. He cannot change his company's policies or the thoughts of its top management. 

What perhaps he could do is to train himself to be cheerful and think good. He could be of some small help to others. He could think positive and make others think positive at least in some instances. On the whole he could remain as a blessing to him and others instead of being a curse to him and others.

His banking job is perhaps the best opportunity. As a front line officer he was blessed with an opportunity to meet people. He could be a blessing and a help to scores of people every day. Perhaps a better opportunity than many of those big officers making big moneys.

It was time to say good-bye to his short time friend. But Bhaskar was a changed man now. He had already taken some firm decisions in his mind.

He was going to be a blessing to others in the days to come.

He was going to be like his modern swamiji who transformed him through some normal but touching human actions and not through those mantras, tantras or magical attires.

It was also very soothing for him to know that there exist so many of such loving gurus all around him. Perhaps they are not showing off. But they would definitely exhibit their godly natures when you need it most.

For Vinod Bhaskar, this land has become an interesting place to experience life! The secrets of happiness of living was unfolding in the minds of Bhaskar. 

The melancholy that was slowly accumulating in the mind of Vinod Bhaskar to become what doctors call as depression has been effectively removed. Vinod was feeling light and cheerful now than before. Had the situation continued he could have even decided to end his life succumbing to such thoughts that pervaded his mind many times earlier. 

While on his onward journey alone, Vinod was a cheerful personality. He thought of his co-passenger, the ordinary looking man who had become a blessing to his life. He thanked him silently in his mind and was now determined to become a blessing to others so long as he lives in this world. Just as his co-passenger was to him a couple of hours earlier.

Indian Railways-Some Suggestions for Improvements from a Passenger !

Ever since I moved out of my home state Kerala some time in 1978, I have been a user of the long distance travel facility provided by the Indian Railways- the largest service facility directly run by the Government of India other than the defence services.

Though many monopolistic government run businesses and services  in the fields of air travel, telecommunication, courier services, mass communication, mining and manufacturing, etc got corporatized and privatized in the recent past, the railway system mostly remained directly in the hands of the government. Corporate entities like the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) etc  have been formed in the recent years by the Ministry of Railways which has allowed some functions to be carried out as corporate business. Even companies like the Konkan Railway and the Delhi Metro Rail doing the business of trail transport service in select sectors have come up as separate entities under the administrative control of the Railway Ministry, which shows the shift in the policy shift of the government in this context.

Beyond that, the government seems direction less with regard to the policy to be adopted with regard to this essential public service system. The result is that the railway system continues to be run as a government department with its inherent advantages and disadvantages. Again such directionless policies are bound to get evolved in a democratic country having a population of uneven development. So, there is no point in criticising the government and I am not doing that.

A user of the railways need not be worried about the ownership and the management control of this organization so far it continues to provide the services befitting to the time and the aspirations of the public.

If run efficiently like a business entity, the Indian railway system would perhaps be the largest business opportunity in India. The moot question is the big if.

How can you bring about quick business like decision making in a mammoth organization which is run on the basis rules and administrative systems essentially made for public accountability rather than public benefit and overall sustainability ?

As a user of the system for the last more than three decades, I can say this for sure. The railway system has become more and more centralized now. The railway officers in local areas seems powerless in resolving common problems of the passengers now, which was not the case some decades ago. Of course we need not be worried about how the railways do their management and administration, provided they do it well.

The Indian public uses the railways for both long distance travel involving monotonous sitting or sleeping having a time span of 3-60 hours and for short distance travel involving sitting or standing for time spans as short as10 Minutes to as long as 6 hours. The requirements of the passengers in the short distance and long distance cases are different.

For all travellers, what is most important is the comfort with respect of sitting, sleeping, cleanness, catering, safety, security, communication, smoothness, speed, booking convenience, costs and of course a comfortable cabin ambiance.

Indian railways are used by poor and rich people alike. There are thousands who can afford to pay reasonable costs for a comfortable travel. That is the great business opportunity for the Railways. 

The problem with the Indian Railways is that the decisions for starting rail services are more political than based on professional assessments. This results in uneven and unscientific distribution of the services which causes great losses to the organisation and discomfort to the public both at the same time.

One of the greatest weakness of the railway management system is its reluctance to use modern computerized ticket reservation systems which ensures highest occupancy of the available berths and seats. It is a common fact that no one can think of getting a reservation in any trains in most of the routes in a short span due to the inherent lacunae in the reservation system.

As a rail passenger I have come across many instances in my own personal experience when the railway reservation system showed non availability of berths and seats while the actual situation in the same train was with an occupancy rate of even less than 50% for more than 50% of the travel distance.

In reality most of the trains are running empty for most of the time in the year while thousands are waiting for reservations !

In this context, I remember a case of travel by a state road transport bus service in the state of Andhra Pradesh two decades ago, when computerisation was just in the initial stages. I went to reserve a ticket for a travel from Vijayawada to Ramagundam. The reservation clerk at the Vijayawada Bus Station showed me the seating system of the bus on his computer terminal with the seats that are available for my travel. I gave my choice and he issued me the reserved tickets for the travel by a particular state road transport bus later in the day.

I thought that bus would be starting from there. But to my surprise I saw the bus reaching the station from another town with lot of passengers. When the bus arrived, the seats reserved for me too were occupied and I was a bit worried. But to my relief, soon those passengers occupying my seats alighted there and I got the seats reserved for without any problem. Again the bus started from there with full occupancy !

All these years I was wondering, why our railways were not in a position to do such kind of a reservation system ?

To my simple logic it seems that they have just got satisfied with the computerization of the seat or berth quota system that used to be there before computerization ! If some one books a berth from Vijayawada to Ramagundam on a train in the route, then no one can perhaps reserve the berth or seat from Ramagundam to say Nagpur even when the seat would be physically vacant as the earlier passenger has alighted the train.

For those in the knowledge of computers, this is not at all a difficult thing to implement. Somehow, the railway mandarins seem not at all comfortable to implement such an easy modification which would benefit both the railways and the passengers.

If the huge extra earning potential of the Travelling Ticket Examiners (TTE) of the railways is the main concern, then of course no one can perhaps think of implementing such things. Rail users like me, are at a loss to understand the logic of the railway management in this !

Many trains with latest comforts are run between awkward stations and at awkward times that they mostly run as show pieces while thousands suffer incapable of using those trains. I do not want to name those trains. People know it. The only logic of running those trains seems ego satisfaction of some local politicians !

This was some random thoughts that just came into my mind on the day the railway budget of India was getting presented on the Lok Sabha by the Railway Minister belonging to one of the political parties of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

I haven't gone through the details of the budget which was presented and I do not want to do that. But something remarkable has just happened.

The Railway Minister's own party has disowned his budget. His party chief became so annoyed that the party has asked for his removal. The head of the coalition has to just fall in line, even when they all are in praise of the policies that are presented in the said budget by this minister.

It is no surprise ! That is the way this country is evolving !

You just cannot dream of having good management systems and governance in a country which is in its infancy state of development and initial stages of experimentation with democracy.
I know there could be thousands of learned and knowledgeable persons in this country of over a billion. But their views are minority voices.

Minority voices do not have the power to make changes, unless they occupy the 'trump-card' position by accidents of time !

So is the case with the Indian Railways.

There are thousand and one ways that this organization is moulded in to one of the best in the world.

There could be scores of good managers , administrators and professionals in the Indian railway organization who knows the ways and means of doing that.

But that is of no use in a democratically evolving set up like this for the time being.

To be a knowledgeable and competent person among a majority that has not reached that state of mind capacity indeed is a painful thing !

So why to give suggestions for improving the railways now ?

Should I reserve it for the opportunistic moment of the future, if at all it comes ?

Even so, let me write down some of those suggestions the railway authorities could keep in mind for implementing if they ever feel doing some thing for improving the great Indian railways :

1. Do some real surveys to find out those loss making train services and take actions not to put the best and brand new coaches for those services. Use the brand new coaches for the long distance trains only as a policy.

2. Lease out some railway space in all railway stations in major cities and towns where private players can set up decent traveller accommodations for genuine passengers who reserve their journey in advance for a comfortable stay for periods not exceeding one or two days. The rooms so provided shall be neat, clean and preferrably with air conditioning or fans and with clean toilets. Star rated luxuries are not what the passengers need, but reasonable neatness, comforts, safety and affordability. Their should be provisions for booking such accommodations in advance while the tickets are booked. Presently many stations have retiring rooms maintained directly by the railway employees. They keep the most ridiculous type of staff to look after these at present who have no manners or courtsey. More over in many crowded stations, such rooms are perennially not available for genuine passengers. If this facility is available, many long distant travellers could conveniently break their tiring train journey enroute to take a refreshing break in some other cities and towns and continue their journeys comfortably in other short distance trains. If the railway managers use their brains properly, they can very well do it in the most beneficial manner for both the railways and the passengers.

3. Raiway can think of implementing the system of 'registered baggage handling' facility for the long distance travel for main sectors of travel just as the airlines are doing. For example for those reserved a/c class passengers travelling between Delhi and Mumbai shall have their registered baggages handed over to the baggage handlers at Delhi and take them back at Mumbai from the baggage office. The railway may fix the type of baggage the passengers are required to carry for this purpose and the maximum number of pieces and their weights. They may also charge a fee for excess baggage. There should be one secured baggage coach in all long distance trains. This service could also be entrusted to private players ensuring proper quality. This would reduce the mad rush in the stations. The railways should also ensure availability of porters for carrying and loading luggage of the passengers and a facility to avail these services with advance booking.

4. Make all long distance trains with air conditioned class only. The system of allotment of seats berths shall be based on the distance travelled rather than the preferrence of the passengers. For example all passengers travelling day time for less than 8 hours shall be booked only on chair car. Those travelling 8-24 hours shall be on a/c 3-tier coaches. Those travelling more than 24 hours shall be on a/c 2-tier coaches. The air conditioned first class  services shall be totally eliminated and such coaches shall be available only on special tourist services or for official purposes. The number of each category of coaches shall be based on the passenger demand as analysed by past history.

5. Non-a/c coaches shall be limited short distance travel trains which run less than a day. If possible such trains shall be run only in those regions where the temperatures do not exceed 32 degrees celcius.

6. Make all long distance a/c coach trains with catering charges included in the cost of travel just as now being done for Rajdhani and Shadabdi type train services. This will eliminate passengers to travel with lighter luggage avoiding those filled with all kinds of eatables. This will also reduce the influx of all kinds of vendors in the coaches disturbing the passengers.

7. There should be announcements for the passengers regarding the approaching stations and the time of halt, delays etc in all the coaches. It is not a difficult thing to implement for the railways if the want to do this. It should be a mandatory service. Though this is available now in Rajdhani and Shadabdi trains, it is not strictly followed by those responsible for implementing this without fail.

8. The Indian railways is a mammoth organization. Centralization of authority for each and every thing would cause serious damage and the local railway officers showing their helplessness to deal with the genuine grievances of the passengers. Railways should provide adequate powers for their officers who are to face the public and notify those officers, their contact details and their powers for decision making. It is quite natural that the ministers, being public representatives, liking to grab all powers of decision making. But they should remember that unless they delegate their powers effectively they would become laughing stock in the eyes of the public whose position do not show any results of effective management !

There could be more such suggestions.

I request the learned readers who use the Indian railways to open up their feelings and suggestions  here using the blog comments tool.