The railways might have set up a committee on Monday to completely revamp the cash-strapped transport giant - as reported by dna in its September 24 edition - but officials on the ground say the committee would have done good if it could bring in that one thing the railways' sorely misses now - speed. And speed, these officials add, is not so much for its trains but for its files.
A range of officials in the city dna spoke to said over the past few years the railways has become an extremely slow organisation as far as decision-making was concerned with even medium-sized projects taking the better part of two years to be cleared. These officials said several projects in Mumbai, all limping or stalled, are testimony to the lack of speed in an organisation that publicly speaks of high speed and bullet trains.
"The Oval maidan-Churchgate-Virar (OCV) elevated corridor. Its state support agreement has been hanging fire since May 2012 and the railways, despite meeting state government officials at least ten times in the interim, have been able to do nothing. The project is now on the verge of being scrapped," said an official.
Similar is the case with the CST-Panvel elevated corridor which has not progressed since the past one year. "Then there is the 5th and 6th line project between Kurla and CST. The files were pending clearance for almost five years," said a senior railway official. The Rs 900 crore 5th and 6th line Kurla-CST project was finally cleared early this month and now officials say costs would escalate by the time work on it begins.
Railway land development has been another casualty of this sloth, say officials. "Mumbai's real estate sector has been demanding that railway allow a lease of at least 80 years for development so that the land can be used for residential purposes which is lucrative in a city like Mumbai. The Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA) rules cap the maximum period of lease at 45 years. The RLDA has forwarded proposals to the railway board to allow a longer lease. The railway board is still sitting on those files,"said an official.
Citing a small example, an official said that in Mumbai, the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation and the state government have been caught in a deadlock for almost 18 months over the Floor Space Index to be granted for a commercial complex set to come up on a 8,900 square metre railway plot adjoining Thane station. "Forget projects worth hundreds of crores, these are small moves that should have seen fruition in a few months at the most. It sometimes seems as if the zonal railways and the railway board are entities poles apart," an official said.
Too many cooks...:
Railway board
State government
Western railways
Central railways
Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
CIDCO
Other civic bodies in Mumbai Metropolitan Region
7-member committee for restructuring railways:
Dr Bibek Debroy, chairman
KM Chandrashekhar, cabinet secretary
Gurcharan Das, former CMD, Procter and Gamble
Prof Partha Mukhopadhyay, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research
Ravi Narain, former MD, National Stock Exchange
Rajender Kashyap, fromer Financial Commissioner, Railways
Nominee of Department of Economic Affairs under Union Ministry of Finance
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