CMD of the Konkan Railway Corporation SANJAY GUPTA in an exclusive interview with ‘The Navhind Times’, speaks to RAMNATH N PAI RAIKAR as regards the future Goa-centric plans of the Konkan Railway, including increasing the number of railway stations in the state and the upcoming container depot at Balli
Q: After over 25 years following the establishment of Konkan Railway Corporation, where do you see the Konkan Railway progressing to? Is Konkan Railway Corporation a financially rewarding undertaking?
Today, the Konkan Railway Corporation is financially stable. It’s not making great money. It is stable to the extent that we are meeting our rents. KRC never had to borrow money to pay the salaries, from the second year of its operations. Our issue was that the money that we had borrowed during construction of the KRC infrastructure was very large amount. We have not been able to repay the interest on the loan that was taken for construction. In fact, the money that was taken from the public was paid by taking loan from the Indian Railways. This amount from the Indian Railways was around Rs 4,000 crore, borrowed over a period of five-six years. Now, this loan has been converted into preferred equity. It’s like a loan without interest. So presently we are holding this preferred equity on our books. Presently, from our regular operations, we are able to make net profit. In addition, we also have a loan of Rs 1,500 crore left on out books, on which we are able to pay interest, although we are not able to reduce this loan. However, now a stage has come wherein we have to increase the capacity of the Konkan Railway. This includes doubling of the first 46 km of the Konkan Railway track, electrification on which we are in the final stages of placing the order and which is a lucrative project as it would give returns very quickly, and finally, capacity doubling project amounting to Rs 5,000 crore presently with the ministry of Railways. In fact, the electrification project should start in two-three months, and complete in two years’ time. I think we should soon be able to clear out loans.
Q: It is perceived that the track-doubling work for the Konkan Railway route would be next to impossible along the Goa stretch, primarily because of the less area available for this expansion on either side of the existing track?
For Konkan Railway, the land requirement for doubling of its tracks would not be such a serious issue as we already have land in most of the places for this project, except in some locations, where there are tunnels. There the tracks would have to be diverted some 20 mts to 30 mts away. So as you can see land requirement is not very large for track-doubling, except for approach of tunnels and approach of bridges. In fact, the immediate plan for track-doubling is not for the entire Konkan Railway route. Such construction work on one patch of 46 km for Roha-Veer track has already been taken up, and will take two years to complete. Nevertheless, for the entire Konkan Railway to increase the capacity before we go in for doubling of the track, there are other measures to be taken up in between, like say, when Konkan Railway project was taken up, the distance between the stations was kept much larger than the usual distance. Therefore, some stations have been missing in between, although the land was acquired for the purpose, due to the reasons of economics. At that time the rail traffic too was much less. So now we are taking up the construction of these missing stations. Lolyem station, which was constructed later, was one of such missing stations, while for other missing stations like Mayem, Neura de Grande and Barcem land is already available. We will complete their construction soon.
Q: There were also plans to use the Konkan Railway trains for intrastate travel in Goa, from Pernem to Canacona…
We have taken Konkan Railway as one unit. So if we have to run a train from this side to that side, then we will have to virtually double the capacity. However, when you double the line, the capacity does not gets doubled but increases four times. Doubling tracks does not mean doubling the capacity, it means increasing the capacity by four-five times. That’s because so much time is wasted when you have a single line, as you are waiting for the other train to come, and the trains keep waiting. When you double line the track, you can send the train every ten minutes, one after the other. For example, the Bombay-Baroda line after Andheri station is double line, and we run 20 trains every day on this line. Once we complete the double tracking and reduce the distance between stations here, then we can go for automatic signaling, with the help of which we can run 500 trains in one direction. So what we need is the doubling of the capacity. And the freight also has to come into picture. Without it how can we survive? We can run passenger trains because of the freight.
Q: It was proposed, some years ago to increase the speed of some of the passenger trains run by the Konkan railway Corporation. What happened to this project?
At that time trial was done with 150 kmph speed. In fact, the alignment, the physical structuring of Konkan Railways was fit for 150 kmph-160 kmph at that time. At that time, the Indian Railways also did not have clear guidelines on 160 kmph; what are the various things required including the safety requirement for 160 kmph. Over the last 20 years, the safety requirements have been going up and although Konkan Railway has been laid out for 150 kmph-160 kmph speed, when ultimately you laid the rail, it is not really geared for running continuously on that speed. So when we did the trial, we sent the trial reports to the commissioner of railway safety and to the Railway Board. At that stage the Railway Board started doing what should be the standards for 160 kmph speed. So now we run the Konkan Railway train at a speed up to 120 kmph. We have asked for dispensation of some of the requirements from the Indian Railways for 130 kmph speed. But then we have to realise that when we run one fast train at 130 kmph, we slow down everybody else, which is an operation requirement. It’s all right to say that you should be able to come to Goa from Mumbai in six hours, but it will take some effort.
Q: Konkan Railway Corporation and Container Corporation of India Ltd intended to set up and operate a container depot at Balli…
Yes, the construction has started and it’s going on. It is something, which is going to be very beneficial to Goa. Today, all containers from here are going in piecemeal to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust for import-export. Once they start segregating here, we will have custom clearance facilities as well as warehousing. So somebody who is a local exporter, in say a pharmaceutical industry or any other industry, he can pack his containers here and do the export formalities from here itself. This project will take a year for its commissioning.
Q: The route of the Konkan Railway includes many beautiful tourist spots. Why has the Konkan Railway Corporation not thought about starting luxury trains for tourists on the lines of say Royal Rajasthan on Wheels or Maharajas’ Express?
See the Deccan Odyssey is doing just that. Those trains are privately operated trains. Only the Palace on Wheels was run by the Indian Railways initially. The Maharajas’ Express, the Golden Chariot, are all state government efforts. The Deccan Odyssey was created by the Maharashtra government but it is not really making money for them, and they have now contracted out to Coxs and Kings. So Coax and Kings are depending on the traffic that they get. They decide the itinerary and would do Rajasthan, Karnataka and then one trip to Goa, and go to Poona. That’s how it is. They come here also. During winter they come to Goa, go to Sawantwadi, take people around Ratnagiri. So if somebody wants to run a tourist train it is available, but it has to be an effort by a private party. Konkan Railway is not here for running tourist trains. For that one needs to have to be in the hospitality industry, with the kind of recruitment that you need to do. The culture one needs, to be in the hospitality industry is totally different.