Accidents linger on - The rail way

Beginning with the bomb blasts at the Chennai railway station on the 1^st of May 2014, there have been four tragedies classified as accidents on the Indian Railway system in the last two months. The bomb blast incident was followed by the 4^th May accident on the Konkan railway system wherein twenty died, 26^th May collision of the Gorakhdham Express killing twenty five and the 25^th June derailment involving the Dibrugarh Rajdhani wherein four persons breathed their last. Yet it is much more than mere numbers game as road accidents alone account for over a lakh and thirty five thousand deaths per annum in the country. A major railway accident irrespective of the number of people that lose their life is a national catastrophe that shakes the collective psyche of the nation and conveys an impression that all is not well with the country.

Such accidents are invariably followed by compensation and a CRS enquiry that goes into the basic causes leading to the incident. Platitudes are mouthed in the silent backdrop of a hectic blame game being played amongst different railway departments. Yet it is certain that the railway brass is shaken to the core by the spate of accidents else how without even a preliminary enquiry, railways proclaimed Maoists as the perpetrators of the accident, a charge promptly and vehemently denied by the federal home ministry and the state government.

Railways being a human centric organization, human failures are bound to happen, howsoever much we may like to decry the same. Six Sigma, theoretically the best possible performance talks of a one in a million rate of failure and yet in almost all areas of our operations, the railway employees are consistently performing much better than that. The employees at the cutting edge level therefore should ideally remain above reproach, yet that does not happen. In the eagerness to apportion blame and inflict punishments and in the process close the file till the next calamity strikes, railway staff and also officers at the base levels are severely taken up as if they have by their acts of commission caused the accident to happen. This in my view is not the right way to go about things.

Until the realization that accidents and consequently the safety environment on the railways or for that matter any other organization is merely a symptom and not the malaise, sinks in, rhetoric shall continue to preside over rational thought. Perhaps it is all about how organizations are run, how leadership roles play their part in bringing about quantum improvements in performance including the operational and safety scenarios that has not yet appeared in the radar of those who matter yet do not matter in the running of monoliths like the railways.

An archaic, feudal and complicated organization headed not by leaders but by satraps cannot be expected to meet the expectations of the twenty first century India, and therefore it is failing with amazing regularity in almost all fields of its operations, except perhaps taking good care of the bureaucratic and political masters. The ivory tower approach that is at the core of the managerial thought process ensures a total disconnect from the field and therefore witnesses emergence of ideas that appear good on paper and in discussions yet do not exactly matter in the long run. We invariably remain where we started.

The arrival of Modi on the national scene has aroused tremendous expectations in the masses and there is absolutely no doubt even in the minds of the worst of the skeptics that the nation is indeed in for a rapid improvement in the scenario. Yes that is what one man is capable of that a collective can never ensure. Unfortunately till the recent change of guard at the center, railways lacked that one man, both at the political as well as bureaucratic leadership levels.

Mammoth organizations that are operational in nature are meant to be led by a leadership that is proactive, decisive and honest besides having a vision for the future. Unfortunately the forever practiced strategy of fumbling in the dark in search of a miracle cure may be a remunerative exercise for the bureaucratic leadership but not for the teeming millions for whom the railways is the only means of going places. 

The wrath of the Gods!

Is it not ironic that Dev Bhoomi suffered the wrath of the gods and people, most of them devotees suffered like no human should be allowed to?

Uttarakhand the newest state of the republic went through one of the severest natural catastrophes the nation faced since it came of its own. Hundreds have died as per official figures though the number is expected to go up many times once the disaster relief and restoration efforts, hampered by the terrain and extent of damage, pick up in the right earnest. Sad it is that this catastrophe happened enroute the abode of the Lord Shiva!
  

Trying times for the new state and the nation, the episode would definitely go down in the annals of history as one of saddest that the nation ever faced. Our heart goes out to those who perished and those who suffered. At such times one indeed looks forward to a humanitarian touch and an efficient handling of the post disaster scenario from the authorities. Is it indeed asking for the moon?

While there is absolutely no doubt that extremely heavy rains and perhaps a cloudburst led to a massive flow of water causing this catastrophe, it is also amply clear that haphazardly mushrooming growth of housing and commercial structures, both authorized and unauthorized in the mountain state have hindered the natural flow of water down the hills. Had the pristine nature and ecology of the mountain state been preserved, the extent of damage would have been far less. This failure to preserve ecology borne out of rampant prevalence of unethical practices in the governance machinery of the nation is a sad yet true scenario.  

The rank inability on the part of the administration to efficiently deal with catastrophes, the disaster and its aftermath generally stinks. The sloth and the rot in the sarkari tantra that lies at the root of the reasons behind such catastrophes in the first place also envelops disaster relief efforts. Restoration works thereafter also leave much to be desired.

Good governance is indeed the answer to all such issues and one eagerly hopes that this sad incident would indeed push the state and its mandarins to provide the much needed good governance. During one of my recent visits to the capital city of the mountain state I was aghast at the extent of infrastructural rot and deficit besides the widely visible symptoms of a city allowed to decay. With its various hill stations also bursting at the seams, it is apparent that the pressing need to develop newer ones has perhaps failed to find acceptance and also the will of the powers that be.

The images of the abode of the Lord Shiva, the holy shrine of Kedarnath both before and after the catastrophe present a sorry picture. The area around the holy shrine that earlier buzzed with a mushrooming growth of ill conceived shanties now looks like a devastated settlement. Perhaps the incident is a way of the gods conveying their unhappiness with the way ecology was being treated in the area around and leading to their abode. Ecological balance would indeed need to be maintained, even at the cost of the so called developmental and political compulsions.

While the extensive loss of lives and damage to infrastructure and property is an irreparable loss, the need of the hour is to take steps to plan and implement a balanced growth of the entire affected belt. The surroundings of the Kedarnath shrine, the approach road and Gauri Kund, all should be developed in an organized manner in keeping with the divine environment, pristine surroundings, need for hygiene and comfort of the devotees. Perhaps the establishment of a shrine board on the lines of Vaishno Devi would mark the perfect beginning of restoration efforts.

The opportunity for a proper positioning of the shrine and the welfare of hordes of devotees should not be allowed to wither away.