Railways found to fudge data on accidents, failures of key assets

CHENNAI: It is not only punctuality data that the railways various zones have been misrepresenting. A railway board order issued to general managers of all zones, including Southern Railway, on Monday, indicates that even data on accident figures and failures of assets like locomotives might not have been reported properly.
The order issued by Vikas Arya, executive director (efficiency and research), has stated that from 2018-19 zonal railways should report failures truthfully and ‘not worry about adverse comparisons with last year’s figures’. “Unless an honest and realistic picture of the present state of affairs is generated, any kind of improvement will not be possible. General managers and divisional railway managers should lay strong emphasis on correct reporting of asset failures, accidents and train punctuality and project the same in Control Office Application (COA) and Integrated Coaching Management System (ICMS),” the order stated.

The board on December 21, 2017, had issued an order which said the system of arrival and departure of trains linked to Control Office Application (COA), an electronic system, was made inoperative at many stations. The timings were fed manually, ensuring that punctuality figures were artificially boosted by zones. Only trains delayed by more than 15 minutes at the terminal station are considered late.

TOI had reported that 1.5 lakh trains across the country were found to be late in the last 11 months, as per data tabled in Parliament.

Railway zones are under pressure to report higher punctuality figures and lower asset failures and accidents. Every such incident has to be reported to the railway board, which often asks uncomfortable questions reflecting the adverse conditions on the ground, said a senior official. “To avoid the embarrassment, zones often under-report the data,” the official said.

Arya’s order has stated that 2018-19 will now be treated as a ‘zero year’ where no comparison of asset failures and punctuality will be done vis-à-vis last year to gauge the performance of the zonal railway. “These parameters will not be taken into consideration with any kind of performance evaluation,” the order stated.

The senior railway official said that proper reporting of the failures and accidents will pave the way for systemic and infrastructure improvement. “As performance of top officials was decided by these failures, it was boosted to never reflect the actual scenario. So the required improvements did not take place,” he said.


However, the official said that there needed to be political will to accept the reduced punctuality figures. “This is a step in the right direction,” he said.