With the Indian Railway?s famous turnaround story under Lalu Yadav having been totally discredited and no signs of any increase in passenger tariff to boost its earnings in the foreseeable future, the behemoth is back to borrowing to keep its development plans on track.

Once again the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which helped kick start the world class Delhi Metro Rail Corporation almost a decade back, has come to the aid of Railways (IR). However, financing one of the most ambitious projects ever taken up by IR may be cheap at about 1% interest and most generous repayment terms, but it won?t come without strings tied. Not only 30% of the material purchases has to be from Japan, for the balance 70% the lead contractor has to be Japanese, though it may have Indian partners. This ensures not only long-term business opportunity for the Japanese industries but also a captive market for Japan’s locomotives, rolling stock, signalling equipment, and the construction industry in general.

While the 1,278-km-long Eastern leg will take care of the burgeoning coal traffic from the eastern coalfields to the scores of thermal plants in Bihar, UP, Haryana and Punjab, the 1,515-km Western corridor promises some exciting possibilities for new ventures that could take birth in the proposed Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), a 150-km-wide belt all along the corridor to make full use of the rail connectivity.

To speed up things, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL) has set up no less than seven chief project managers (CPMs ) at Mumbai, Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Ajmer, Jaipur, and Dadri for the short but highly vital Dadri-Rewari link.

Of these, the largest one, viz. Ajmer with 362 km, has also been the most prompt with almost 95% of the land acquired, a key element in the entire R80,000-crore project of the DFCCIL. This has been thanks mainly to the new Special Railway Projects Act of 2008, which replaces certain provisions of the earlier Railway Act of 1886!

Amongst other things, awards under the new Act cannot be challenged in a court of law. However, the complainant can go for arbitration. Under section 20A of the Act of 2008, a notification is issued by the district authorities and after due consideration of the objections filed an award is made under section 20E, after which the land is taken over. The whole process is normally completed in one year as against three years or more for acquisitions under the earlier system, if in the mean time the matter did not end up in a court of law.

The DFCCIL is also actively pursuing construction of ‘road over bridges’ to eliminate level crossings wherever its tracks are close and parallel to the existing alignments, thus killing two birds with one stone. As a result the district administration is only too happy to help the DCCIL to speed up the process with various permissions and sanctions.

Perhaps one of the most desirable aspects of the project is that it is no longer subject to the whims and fancies of the political master who occupies the august chair in the corner room of Rail Bhavan.

The new corridors being meant purely for freight has stations spaced 50 km apart, with junction arrangement no closer than 250 to 300 km. With a very strict regimen of on-site inspections and prior approval of all plans, JICA will be looking for quick and steady returns on its investments, and not keen on scoring brownie points from socially desirable ventures.

However this may still not stop a determined minister from bulldozing his or her way into the history books by ordering running another set of ?Garib raths?, ?Sampark Kranti express? or a ?Durontos? on tracks specifically meant to carry freight!

With a tally of over 11,000 passenger trains on the 64,000-km of track already crowding out 6,000 freight trains, only a person with a long-term vision would be able to put a stop to any further degradation of the system.

However, the DFCCIL project also promises to usher in an era of new technologies in the field of mechanised track laying, maintenance, locomotives, rolling stock, signalling, and special types of wagons capable of mechanised loading and discharge. and JICA is unlikely to tolerate any political interference.

And that is definitely something to look forward to.

The writer is former member (mechanical), Railway Board.

email : acharya@bol.net.in