About five months ago, this writer sent a couple of queries under Right to Information Act 2005 to the Ministry of Railways, in the context of the race to achieve 100 per cent electrification of Indian Railways: (i) the number of goods train formations (rakes) that were stabled as on March 31, 2023 midnight for want of electric locomotives to haul them and (ii) the number of serviceable diesel electric locomotives stabled as on March 31, 2023 and their age profile.

“Stabling’’ is railway jargon to denote temporary immobilisation or storage of mobile assets for various reasons.

What followed was akin to a nuclear chain reaction: Over the last three months “responses” were received from nearly all the 70 railway divisions and a few locomotive maintenance depots of Indian Railways, some from the same source multiple times.

Till the time of writing this article, out of about 180 replies received, 150 were in the negative and the rest contained the relevant information.

The Railway Ministry, which prides itself in being not only a policy making body but an operational one, had apparently transferred the RTI application to all the 70 railway divisions, with instructions to reply directly to the applicant. What prompted the Ministry resort to this dilatory, wasteful and farcical method of response?

The answer perhaps lies in the contents of the replies received and their import. From the replies received it could be gathered that as on March 31, 2023, there were 47 goods train formations (rakes), loaded and empty, immobilised for want of electric locomotives to haul them.

On the same date there were 585 diesel electric locomotives (henceforth referred to as diesel locomotives) stabled (stored) in serviceable condition all over the Railways, of which 369 (63 per cent) had residual service life of more than 15 years.

Goods train rakes and locomotives are amongst the costliest assets of the Railways and their simultaneous idling is indicative of a serious systemic imbalance, in this case arising out of one of the most prestigious projects of Indian Railways: 100 per cent Railway electrification. This article is not about the time-worn debate of electric traction versus diesel traction but about the unseen but costly fall out of rapid electrification.

Horns of a dilemma

According to Indian Railways Year Book 2021-22, there were 4,747 diesel locomotives and 8,429 electric locomotives on Indian Railways. The annual production of electric locomotives is about 1,000. To cope with this steady increase, the maintenance infrastructure of diesel locomotives is being repurposed to suit electric locomotives, rendering an equivalent number of diesel locomotives “homeless”, resulting in their stabling.

In this rapidly changing scenario, sometimes the availability of electric locomotives does not match the traffic requirements, resulting in the absurd situation of freight train rakes idling for want of electric locomotives even while serviceable diesel locomotives are stabled at various locomotive depots.

At the present rate of addition of new electric locomotives to the fleet, complete switch over to electric traction may stretch to 3-4 years, at the end of which at least 3,000-3,500 serviceable diesel locomotives will become redundant. There are limited options for repurposing or monetising these locomotives, apart from retaining a few hundred locomotives for strategic considerations.

A majority may have to head prematurely to the scrap yard. There is however an option to use the relatively new high horse power diesel locomotives (numbering about 2,200) till the end of their service life of 35 years. That means the dichotomy of operating diesel locomotives “under wire” on a 100 per cent electrified railway for many years! The situation is quite muddled, which perhaps explains the evasive response of Ministry to the RTI queries

Why this tearing hurry?

One of the declared objectives of electrification of the entire Broad-Gauge network is “to provide environment friendly, green and clean mode of transport to its people”. This pious declaration needs to be taken with a few tonnes of coal.

Consider this. Today 49.1 per cent of the electricity generated in the country is from coal fired thermal power plants. 45 per cent of freight earnings of Indian Railways comes from transporting coal, out of which 45 per cent is through transporting coal only to these power plants which works out to 20 per cent of the total freight earnings.

More significantly, the Revised Estimates for 2022-23 and Budget Estimates for 2023-24 have projected that nearly 40 per cent of total freight earnings will come from transport of coal to power houses. Burning more coal to generate more electricity to power electric locomotives to move more coal is hardly the way to make the environment greener.

Until at least 75-80 per cent of power generated in the country comes from non-fossil fuel sources, claims of 100 per cent electrification leading to greener environment are that much hot air (Pun intended).

Going by the reported plans to put up more coal based thermal power plants and to ramp up coal traffic on the Railways that day seems far away.

Hidden costs

That leads to a much larger issue: the hidden costs of headline-grabbing projects. Be it the opulent “airportification” of Railway stations with unsustainable future maintenance costs, or the frenzied rush to achieve 100 per cent electrification rendering thousands of serviceable locomotives redundant, what is manifest is a disturbing tilt towards profligacy, which even a soon-to-be $5 trillion economy cannot sustain.

Meanwhile the organisation is struggling to fully meet its pension payment obligations. It is perhaps time for the Comptroller and Auditor General of India to deep dive into the true costs of such reckless excursions into extravagance and wave the red flag.

The writer is formerly of the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers was Member Staff, Railway Board