How can we improve Indian Railways?

[Blackwater]

We need to corporatize Railways, reduce staff, reduce frills and amenities, go for minimalism.

And we need bullet trains.

If a person sitting in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Meerut, would be able to reach Central Delhi in an hour, I tell you there will be an economic revolution in India.

Not possible in Indian politics which means not possible for next 100 yrs atleast

 

[The Messiah]

Allow private participitation...maybe private companies can lay new tracks for bullet trains rather than getting into the existing system.

 

[no smoking]

Allow private participitation...maybe private companies can lay new tracks for bullet trains rather than getting into the existing system.

I don't think privatisation is a good idea when you focus is building a decent railway system instead of managing a railway.

There is only one thing these private inestors care: profit. In order to build a railway, you need billions of dallors here and may take 30-50 years to take money back. So, very few private fund likes such kind of project.

Most likely solution is private investment and indian gov guarantee their profit which I don't think indian public would like the concequence:
high ticket price and compromise in territory economic benefit.

 

[Ray]

I don't think privatisation is a good idea when you focus is building a decent railway system instead of managing a railway.

There is only one thing these private inestors care: profit. In order to build a railway, you need billions of dallors here and may take 30-50 years to take money back. So, very few private fund likes such kind of project.

Most likely solution is private investment and indian gov guarantee their profit which I don't think indian public would like the concequence:
high ticket price and compromise in territory economic benefit.

You are right.

However, the Railways is the biggest employer in the country.

Giving employment, especially in the lower grades, is also a way how political parties keep their interest group happy and in their grip.

Therefore, economically it is a good idea, but the political parties will never buy that idea, since it will divest them from the political power they have because of the railways.

 

[Ray]

Loo Stink: Will railways manage to install discharge free toilets?

Listen carefully and you will hear the sound of gleeful flushing. Or maybe a triumphant drumming on toilet tanks or banging of cleaning buckets or in whichever way toilet and sanitation activists celebrate a notable victory.

Because they have long been pushing Indian Railways to end the open discharge of human waste from railway toilets on to the tracks, and the Anil Kakodkar-led high level committee on railway safety has handed them a powerful argument by highlighting the damage that this system is causing to the tracks.

"Because of the pH content etc. of the toilet discharge, there is widespread corrosion of the rails. These toilets need to be discontinued," Kakodkar told the media.

The corrosive effects of human waste are well known. The Handbook of Corrosion Engineering by Pierre R Roberge notes how aircraft washrooms are particularly prone to dangerous corrosion due to "beverage and human excrement spills", adding that military transport planes experienced a reduction in corrosion maintenance after they replaced stand-up toilet facilities that were particularly prone to such spills.

One of the big problems faced by ecologically sound waterless urinals is the rapid build-up in corrosion from undiluted waste fluids.

Split Wide Open

The problem of excrement along Indian railway tracks is also well-known. It even had a cultural moment in Pradip Krishen and Arundhati Roy's cult film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones. The Annie of the title is Anand Grover, a dreamy architectural student who wants to submit a project, which involves planting fruit trees along the tracks.

Because of fertilisation from the excrement along the tracks, they will grow well and all the Railways need to do is install sprinklers on trains to water the trees as they pass.

A Problem of Plenty

Other views of the Railway's excrement problem are less benign. In An Area of Darkness, V S Naipaul's first and most horrified depiction of the India of his ancestors, he goes into a paroxysm of loathing about Indian hygiene: "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly, beside the railway tracksa¦" Rose George in The Big Necessity, her fascinating book about the world of human waste, writes that of the 200,000 tonnes of human faeces deposited daily in India, a large percentage is left on or alongside railway tracks.

The visual evidence of this is obvious to anyone who regularly travels by trains. The open defecation along the tracks is an arresting corrective to illusions about Indian Shining. The Railways may regret the damage this causes its image, but it is of less concern than the wastes its own passengers generate. George notes that Indian Railways is one of the last large institutional employers of human scavengers, to clean its tracks: "Until fully-sealed flush latrines were installed on its trains in place of the current 'open discharge' ones, scavengers were the cheapest cleaning option."

For several years now we have been promised that the dawn of non-discharging toilets in railways carriages is imminent. In his Railway Budget speech for 2008-9, Lalu Prasad Yadav declared, "Discharge from toilets of trains on the run is a primary cause for poor sanitation at stations." He said that the Railways had developed discharge-free toilets that were showing extremely encouraging results, so he pledged 4,000 crore to provide such toilets in all 36,000 coaches by end of the 11th Plan Period. That is around now and from what the Kokodkar committee says, it is clear that this has not happened and the money has been, well, discharged to no purpose.

Atmospheric pressures

To be fair to the Railways, designing a discharge-free toilet is not easy. The standard models for these in the transportation sector are the ones used in airplanes and high-tech trains where the wastes go into sealed tanks along with a disinfecting fluid. But the conditions such a toilet must face in India are laid out in a revealing tender document from 2005 from the Railways' Research Design and Standards Organisation.

These include having to deal with a temperature range from -4° to 55°C with 100% humidity and dust. Most coaches are based in coastal cities, so there is exposure to salt-laden air. Yet the toilets must be ready to be used approximately 150 times in 24 hours on journeys that could be around 77 hours (the newly-launched Vivek Express from Dibrugarh to Kanyakumari will run at over 82 hours).

Loo Stink: Will railways manage to install discharge free toilets? - The Economic Times

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

It is better to bring in private players and investors into the railway. In the sense we have to partially privatize railway to improve the condition and also upgrade the tracks.

 

[ejazr]

What ails the Indian Railways?

A very well researched article on Indian railways.

Some excerpts below and would be a good idea to read the entire article as well

Tehelka - India's Independent Weekly News Magazine
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WHAT AILS Indian Railways? The diagnosis can be made by looking at four broad-sweep parameters:
"¢ It is overstaffed and has a far greater employee and wages burden than is warranted. What's more — no railway minister wants to rectify this.

"¢ It is not focussing on its core area — transporting goods and people across long distances — and is side-tracked by short-distance, uneconomical and unnecessary routes as well as a suburban rail network that should be run by city and state authorities rather than the national railway. Even outsourcing of catering operations is deemed politically incorrect and creates a behemoth that ends up going nowhere.

"¢ Since it lives such a hand-to-mouth existence, existing from railway budget to railway budget and from railway minister's whimsy to railway minister's fancy, Indian Railways has little time and money for strategic thinking, visionary planning and spending on technological upgrade. The best illustration of this is that the Vivek Express, the train that links India's Northeast to the southern ocean, travels at an average of 51 kmph. At a time when China is building an inter-city high-speed railway network with speeds of 350 kmph, this doesn't seem ordinary, it seems obsolete.

"¢ As a result of all this, the Railways finds itself out of tune with the needs of Indian business travellers and stakeholders — increasingly irrelevant to a growing industrial economy precisely at a time when the opportunities before it are bigger than ever before.
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WHAT SHOULD be the core area of focus for Indian Railways? It has an expansive network of 7,083 railway stations and 131,205 railway bridges — a quarter of these bridges are over a century old, but that's another matter — and 19,000 km of track. Is all of this equally important? According to the Expert Group for Modernisation of Indian Railways headed by Sam Pitroda — it submitted its report to Trivedi on 25 February, in his final weeks as minister — "40 percent of the total network"¦ [is] carrying about 80 percent of the traffic".

This super-busy part of the network includes what Railways officials call the "arterial routes" — the "golden quadrilateral" linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, and the "two diagonals" that run from Delhi to Chennai and Kolkata to Mumbai and criss-cross the quadrilateral. The four mega-cities and the connections between them actually make up no more than 16 percent of the Railways' infrastructure network — but contribute to 60 percent of the traffic.

Logically, if Indian Railways were run like a business corporation, it would channel its energies in this area. It would invest in, for instance, signalling technology that would allow it to run trains more frequently, and closer to each other in terms of time and distance, than is possible today. The Pitroda Committee even discussed the idea of investing in signalling and tracks and allowing private companies to run their own trains, to complement Indian Railways trains while paying user charges.
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FRANKLY, THE biggest curse afflicting the Indian Railways is the anachronistic existence of a railway budget, which has been separate from the general budget since 1924. It serves no purpose as outlays for it come out of the Consolidated Fund of India and can be incorporated in the general budget speech. Fare hikes or freight charge revisions in the Railways do not need Parliamentary approval. Indeed even a divisional officer — let alone a member of the Railway Board — has the authority to quote and negotiate freight rates.

So what does the railway budget do? Willy-nilly it becomes a platform for distributing political favours. New trains and out-of-the-blue stations may not be economically viable or even socially necessary — but who will dare deny a powerful MP or an allied party the right to boast to voters and make a symbolic statement? In the run-up to the railway budget of 2012, Trivedi is believed to have received 5,000 suggestions from "brother MPs".
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Pitroda has also sought commercial exploitation of Indian Railways' property and stations using public-private partnerships, as well as modern signalling and introduction of high-speed locomotives on key routes. This will cost money. The proposed 350 kmph, high-speed train link between Mumbai and Ahmedabad will be built over 10 years and cost Rs 60,000 crore. The Pitroda Committee wants the model to be replicated on six other routes, including Delhi-Patna (991 km) and Chennai-Bengaluru-Coimbatore-Ernakulam (850 km). The abolition of all level crossings, another proposal, will cost Rs 50,000 crore.

Implementing the Pitroda report will require Rs 8.4 lakh crore over five years. It is only possible with large-scale private partnerships and even outright privatisation that the Railway Modernisation Group suggests but which the UPA government — whether the allies or even the Congress party itself — would be hostile to. Indeed, it is difficult to see any Indian political party completely buying into the Pitroda blueprint. In addition, there is the Anil Kakodkar Committee on safety that wants Rs 1 lakh crore spent on safety mechanisms over five years (though some of its proposals overlap with Pitroda's).

That is the dream, where is reality? Frankly, are those gargantuan numbers, running into hundreds of thousands of crores, even conceivable? If Indian Railways finds its pension bill pressing, can it afford such massive infrastructural investments? After all, Rs 60,000 crore is the annual plan outlay for Indian Railways in 2012-13, and it is the highest ever!

There are other factors. The political class would be loath to reduce the employment potential of Indian Railways without the guarantee that those who don't get these jobs will be absorbed elsewhere. On the other hand, there is the fear that if nothing is done, Indian Railways will go the Air-India way. Conservative voices argue that if too much is done, it could go the Kingfisher Airlines way.

The debate is endless. Nevertheless, without a radical transformation in the manner in which Indian Railways is managed — and without bringing in a rational measure of private players as partners — India's rail story will keep going downhill. The point is: can the new railway minister, Mukul Roy, see the lantern waving furiously in the distance?

 

[The Messiah]

Two Words: Populist Policies

 

[pmaitra]

I don't think the author has done a proper research before writing this article.

It is overstaffed and has a far greater employee and wages burden than is warranted. What's more — no railway minister wants to rectify this.
IR actually needs more staff for the maintenance of railway infrastructure. One example would be the time required for building new routes. While PRC can mobilise enough workforce, IR gets stuck because of complications arising out of hiring non-permanent or contingency workers.

It is not focussing on its core area — transporting goods and people across long distances — and is side-tracked by short-distance, uneconomical and unnecessary routes as well as a suburban rail network that should be run by city and state authorities rather than the national railway.
Yes, but many of these uneconomical routes are necessary because of social reasons and definitely not unnecessary as the author thinks.

Even outsourcing of catering operations is deemed politically incorrect and creates a behemoth that ends up going nowhere.
Yet, oursourcing and privatisation has not had the desired effects on the quality of catering services and general cleanliness.

... allowing private companies to run their own trains
And they will only end up running goods trains and not passenger trains, because good trains generate more revenue. There should be restrictions.

 

[Mad Indian]

It is not focussing on its core area — transporting goods and people across long distances — and is side-tracked by short-distance, uneconomical and unnecessary routes as well as a suburban rail network that should be run by city and state authorities rather than the national railway.
Yes, but many of these uneconomical routes are necessary because of social reasons and definitely not unnecessary as the author thinks.

No problem in having the uneconomical groups up and running, but its no excuse to open up new trains in congested economical routes. But the problem is the money which should go for bringing new trains to the economical areas is getting routed to the uneconomical areas. For instance, TN despeately needs double tracks and several new trains. The Train to my place Podigai gets booked in seven minutes of the opening of the booking for Diwali, Pongal etc. Under Normal days, it gets filled up in fifteen days of opening the booking. NOw tell me, if the demand is so high, why has new train not been introduced to this Route? Its because, there are not enough new trains and those awailable are getting diverted to non important areas.

Even outsourcing of catering operations is deemed politically incorrect and creates a behemoth that ends up going nowhere.
Yet, oursourcing and privatisation has not had the desired effects on the quality of catering services and general cleanliness.

Thats not because of privatisation, but because the regulations are not followed properly because of the corrupt officials. Dont blame the subject, blame the system.

... allowing private companies to run their own trains
And they will only end up running goods trains and not passenger trains, because good trains generate more revenue. There should be restrictions.

Come on mate. If the Private players run only the goods, then we can use the money "extracted" from them to increase the no. of tracks and so increase the passenger trains. this effect is indirect. So please get out of this Nehru mindset of restrictions.

 

[ant80]

An article on the NYT about Indian Railways. Also read the link to an older article describing the state of affairs of the Indian Railways in 2010.

 

[ejazr]

It is not focussing on its core area — transporting goods and people across long distances — and is side-tracked by short-distance, uneconomical and unnecessary routes as well as a suburban rail network that should be run by city and state authorities rather than the national railway.
Yes, but many of these uneconomical routes are necessary because of social reasons and definitely not unnecessary as the author thinks.

Even outsourcing of catering operations is deemed politically incorrect and creates a behemoth that ends up going nowhere.
Yet, oursourcing and privatisation has not had the desired effects on the quality of catering services and general cleanliness.

... allowing private companies to run their own trains
And they will only end up running goods trains and not passenger trains, because good trains generate more revenue. There should be restrictions.

Well personally, I think IR should be privatised in the long run. But even in the short term, we don't want to go the China way by building long uneconomical railway tracks and become a loss making enterprise.

By focussing on increasing capacity on busy routes, IR can generate more revenue there. This will in turn help in upgrading un economical routes or invest in these routes to make it more economical.

Not sure if catering on railways was ever outsourced to a private company but I would be interested in any links to such undertakings if it was done and ended up a failure.
I would have assumed that there would be SLAs built into the contract where it states that if the caterer can't provide such and such quality of service, the contract will be terminated and awarded to another company,

 

[pmaitra]

No problem in having the uneconomical groups up and running, but its no excuse to open up new trains in congested economical routes. But the problem is the money which should go for bringing new trains to the economical areas is getting routed to the uneconomical areas. For instance, TN despeately needs double tracks and several new trains. The Train to my place Podigai gets booked in seven minutes of the opening of the booking for Diwali, Pongal etc. Under Normal days, it gets filled up in fifteen days of opening the booking. NOw tell me, if the demand is so high, why has new train not been introduced to this Route? Its because, there are not enough new trains and those awailable are getting diverted to non important areas.



Thats not because of privatisation, but because the regulations are not followed properly because of the corrupt officials. Dont blame the subject, blame the system.



Come on mate. If the Private players run only the goods, then we can use the money "extracted" from them to increase the no. of tracks and so increase the passenger trains. this effect is indirect. So please get out of this Nehru mindset of restrictions.

Not quite.

IR is investing in the cities and the suburbs.

Recently, IR invested a lot of money to convert the Metre Gauge suburban trains in Chennai to Broad Gauge. My dad was in the Board of Directors of Southern Railway at that time. It's not fair to say the government does not care about important routes. Of course, development of Chennai and its suburbs bring more benefit to the state and the country than developing some far away village.

We have seen how privatisation has worked out with all the mining scandals abound.

W.r.t. IR, I have not seen any significant improvement of services after catering and laundry work was privatised. Those that argued privatisation will improve the services need to come out and provide an explanation now.

Well personally, I think IR should be privatised in the long run. But even in the short term, we don't want to go the China way by building long uneconomical railway tracks and become a loss making enterprise.

By focussing on increasing capacity on busy routes, IR can generate more revenue there. This will in turn help in upgrading un economical routes or invest in these routes to make it more economical.

Not sure if catering on railways was ever outsourced to a private company but I would be interested in any links to such undertakings if it was done and ended up a failure.
I would have assumed that there would be SLAs built into the contract where it states that if the caterer can't provide such and such quality of service, the contract will be terminated and awarded to another company,

I am sorry, I disagree, because, there is a precedent already.

Perhaps you should read the history of Amtrak and why most of the private railways are not running many passenger trains in the US.

Even now, as fuel prices are high, including that of aviation fuel, why aren't enough passenger trains running in the US as much as they should have?

 

[Ray]

IR will not only ail, but also have its cup of woes to the brim.

They have Mukul Roy, who is an illiterate!

 

[LurkerBaba]

Article posted earlier:

Modernization of Indian Railways

An attempt for total re-engineering of organisational and structural system of Indian Railways.

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Present Scenario of IR:

Broadly each zonal railway has total 11 departments including Medical and Security i.e. Mechanical, Electrical, Civil Engineering (Engineering), Signal & Telecommunication(S&T), Material Management(Stores), Operation, Commercial( both operation & commercial called Traffic), Personnel, Finance(Account), Medical and Security.

It is observed that inter-departmental parochial in-fighting is eating away the whole developmental attitude in Indian Railways. Thus, if one department proposes a project for overall development involving other departments, surely one or two of those departments will stand on way to protect its own interest ignoring the whole IR's interest. Similarly, stores, accounts, personnel department may not agree to the proposal showing their own rules and regulations or orders.

So, the biggest hindrance for any sustainable development of IR is the presence of existing multi-cadres system. This system became worst due to heterogeneous essential entry qualifications of directly recruited gazetted and supervisory cadres through UPSC and Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) respectively. These non-uniform essential entry qualifications do not help to create an attitude and also aptitude for well perception of day to day working problems including strategic planning, its implementation speedily and cordially amongst the different departments with sense of integrity. The problems become very critical to the customers while travelling in trains due to lack of co-ordination and integration within the working officers and staff of different departments / wings on board and platforms to tackle the day-today complaints of customers professionally. Ultimately, blame–game amongst them (rail personnel) makes the customers most sufferers.
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Critical analysis and Recommendations:

1. Since Indian Railways (IR) is basically an Industry of Transport-Service / life line of our nation and 65% – 70% employees are of purely technical oriented to serve our dearer customers (passengers & freight loaders) through core activities of train running, the rest 35% – 30% employees of supporting cadres like Traffic, Personnel and Accounts, particularly gazetted officers and supervisors should also be technically qualified as the case may be i.e. degree/diploma. In IR, people from other than technical education (degree/diploma) in IRPS, IRTS and IRAAS can not be also better than Engineers with back-up of respective specialisation like MBA (HRM/HRD/HR), MBA (Finance) and MBA (Operation) etc. or appropriate management education and training in IR's Institutes. Of course, IR's Institutes should be upgraded more or less equivalent to any reputed management Institute in India.

2. Therefore, there should be single technically qualified cadre in gazetted officer (IRSE – Indian Railway Service of Engineers) and supervisor level. The minimum basic technical qualifications (degree / diploma) should be like these disciplines: Mechanical, Electrical &Electronics, Civil, and Electronics and Telecommunication etc..

2. The candidates recruited through UPSC in case of direct officers and RRB for supervisors shall be in-house trained with cross disciplinary exposure and posting including operation, personnel and accounts & audits.

3. All officers up to SAG should be posted in a cross disciplinary manner with routine job rotation in all wings/departments including RDSO, except in medical and security to gain multi-disciplinary skills on the job and better perception of day-to-day problems being faced and their immediate solution with positive attitude for the interest of whole IR. After SAG, there should be a selection for onwards promotion to PHOD/DRM/GM on their option for i) General management and ii) Executive / Field( Open line, Workshops, RDSO etc.).

5. It is observed and experienced that the CEO, Country Head, Chairman, MD etc. of big corporate houses like ITC, ONGC and many MNCs are/were from Engineers with management education or even without it. Their performance proved and raised them to ultimate highest position. Mr. Y.C. Deveswar, Chairman of ITC is a mechanical Engineer (IIT) with management back up from Harvard. Subir Raha, ex-Chairman of ONGC, a graduate in Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering, specialising in Industrial Electronics from Jadavpur University in 1969 and later he did MBA from University of Leeds in 1985. Rajat Kumar Gupta, ex-Managing Director of Mckinsey & Company, is Bachelor of Technology degree(B.Tech.) in Mechanical Engineering from IIT-Delhi and an MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS) 1973. Ramesh, Country Head of Dorma India Pvt. Ltd., a MNC, based in Madras, is graduate in mech. engg. Subhasis Ganguly, country Head of a MNC, Hydro Building System (India), based in Bangaluru, a graduate in mech. engineering from JU. There are huge examples like these people heading big organisations.
....

....

6. As on March, 2009, 29.99% of total route kms. were electrified. If it is analysed critically, it is observed that there is neither valid acceptable justification financially for Return On Investment (ROI) nor any other advantages except in as an alternate traction to Diesel one. Moreover, under the insufficient generation of electric power in our country, a large number of agricultural fields and farmers thereof are being deprived of electric power due to reckless electrification. The expenditure per electric loco is much higher than that of one Diesel Loco ( about 2.5 times than Diesel Loco). Besides, in any heavy accident, heavier loss is incurred (time, money and inconvenience to dear customers) than Diesel traction.
Therefore, it is recommended to stop all electrifications to save huge money which can easily be diverted to other sustainable developmental projects for strengthening IR's financial position.

7. All projects appeared in RSP and Works Programmes simply being kept alive providing a token amount of fund for years after years should be reviewed seriously and scrapped immediately.

8. Fares for passengers and freight must be increased at per the demands of prevailing market price to match expenditure and earnings for the better customers' service including facilities and amenities like safety, security, punctuality, comfortable travelling, cleanliness, no harassment by RPF and GRP, availability of water 24 hours in running train with proper arrangement for authorized paid service of pure drinking water etc..

9. Regarding security, first of all both RPF and GRP must be withdrawn. Particularly, GRP must go away immediately to save huge funds. RPF should be taken off gradually. Instead, armed CISF should be deployed with the power of presenting the culprit, suspect to the court within 24 hours of arrest. At the fist instance, RPF should be deployed only in the stationery installations like workshops, training school & Institutes, goods shed etc. CISF should be deployed at running train, station, track etc. For this Indian Railways Act 1989 may be amended if required for the Customers' interest and also country thereof.

A study report on RPF done during mid-ninety in S E Railway, Garden Reach, and Kolkata may be referred in this context. It may also be available in Board's office under E&R (ME) directorate.

10. There should be further Man Power Planning by non-railway agency of repute like PWC, Young&Earnst and others over the departments like Personnel, Finance, Security and Operation. Last MPP was done by RITES who made about 40% rail personnel excess and recommended to reduce personnel @3% per annum. Thus the present strength has been achieved 13.86lakhs (2008-09) from 16.52lakhs (1990-91).

11. Political dictatorship by the leaders of political party should invariably be restrained at all level to the maximum extent possible for effective and smooth management of Indian Railways (IR). Therefore, head of the IR as Minister of Railways(MR), should function as Titular head of IR, instead of existing manner of whims and exploitation of IR's platform in the personal and party's interest. Railway Board's decision through CRB if returned thrice by MR, the decision will automatically be binding on MR to approve or sanction to save the country's LIFE LINE from breaking down to the ground.

12. To generate revenue from non-conventional method, it is recommended that all vacant land may be utilized for production of agricultural products on lease basis.

Since 1965 grow more food scheme initiated by late Lal Bahadur Shastri, ex-PM of India was started in Railways' vacant land. This was implemented at Raipur, now Chhattisgarah, Kharagpur and other places too since long time ago. It gives no problem of permanent structure and rather produces more food for the nation. At any moment, in the exigency of railways' developmental project, lease can be withdrawal. IR should take this advantage leaving side other utopian idea like building of commercial structure for hotel etc. which destroys the railways' land only creating hindrance to the sustainable developmental projects, whenever required in future.

 

[Rahul92]

Only privatize the passenger routes and let GOI have monopoly on Freight routes which is most beneficial

 

[Rahul92]

Only privatize the passenger routes and let GOI have monopoly on Freight routes which is most beneficial

But i think GOI may do exactly vice versa

 

[Blackwater]

No Chance

















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[Kunal Biswas]

Northern eastern railways..

 

[NSG_Blackcats]

Let it go man, this is not the right time to talk about Indian Railways. We have a minister who make a paid visit to Rail Bhawan may be once in a month. We are having train accidents regularly thanks to the great importance give to safety by Laluji, Mamtaji and now Mukul dada.

Whatever little profit margin was left the recent diesel price hike will wipe them out as majority of our locos still runs on diesel. (May be our great PM had forgot this while he had tried to bite the bullet)