The Statesman Kolkata covered ACD on 29th July 2010

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Ignoring safety, breeding insecurity

28 July 2010

It is a burning issue within Indian Railways, amongst conscientious senior officers who know about what is happening and all that could ~ and should ~ have been done to avert the spate of track tragedies that have cost thousands of lives over the past few years. Yet, apart from lip-service to the need for an anti-collision device (ACD), usually in the context of a cry in favour of the installation of a ruinously expensive Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) after every train accident, the technologies are confused.
And people remain unaware of our indigenously developed, cheaper and superior technology infused ACD, the Raksha Kavach, the introduction of which has been repeatedly stalled. Perhaps Miss Mamata Banerjee need to be reminded of her own commitment to an ACD, and there's none better placed to do so than Mr Bojji Rajaram, a retired Indian Railways official who served as MD Konkan Railway Corporation and as Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He has been instrumental in devising revolutionary low-cost engineering technologies like the Raksha Kavach and the Sky Bus Metro, amongst others. Mr Rajaram spoke to Shiv Karan Singh about how Railways bureaucracy has compromised passenger safety.
Q: News reports say the Railways will be installing TPWS across various zones, limiting the indigenous, non-signal ACD to the southern region. Another official says the ACD has been disowned entirely. Is Railway safety on the right track?
A: A joke is being played on the unsuspecting public by the Railway Board by saying TPWS will protect against collisions. With TPWS, the station alone, till the signal is red, is partially protected. The block sections remain unprotected. TPWS does not give any protection on tracks between stations. Actually, there is no technology in the world which can automatically prevent the collision of an oncoming train with a derailed train on the same track except ACD. Only 10 per cent of the Railway network gets partially protected with the inferior performing system that is TPWS and it costs a ton. The ACD network, when fully implemented, will protect 100 per cent of the network, including stations, junctions, and block sections inclusive of gates and vulnerable locations and even when the signal is not red. And will cost less than 15 per cent of what TPWS costs. ACD is the most economical accident prevention system in the world. TPWS is a grand failure when signal colour is green by signaling mistakes, which Railway Board knows happens; it is discussed in confidential meetings with GMs. Jnaneswari or Ghaisal types of accidents cannot be prevented by spending enormous amounts of unnecessary money on TPWS. The news reports you speak of, if true, are insulting the Indian public's intelligence and are a blot on our nation.
Q: Are you saying the Railways is giving preference to expensive, limited foreign technologies rather than cheaper indigenous technology?
A: The amount of strategic thinking to ensure that ACDs are prevented from being employed is mind-boggling! Honest officials on higher rungs don't have that much time to go into details of a case but in the process those with evil designs have a field day, pushing files and notes to their advantage. In this case, it has been the pushing of foreign technologies, even if outdated. The same thing happened with Metro Rail as is happening for ACDs.
Q: Please define the ACD technology that you helped innovate?
A: Anti-collision non-signal devices are intelligent rugged microprocessors to self determine location and status when mobile on a railway while static ACDs monitor vulnerable locations like stations, gates, slopes, bridges. The ACD devices securely inter communicate within the range of distance required to reduce speeds of moving units to assure safety against collisions or accidents, keeping a log of train speeds and status for any derailment-type accidents like a black box. Independent of signals and human inputs, ACDs create an ever present Raksha Kavach, a protective bubble.
Q: How does ACD technology compare to other safety technologies such as Vigilance Control Device (VCD) and TPWS?
A: VCD is primitive; an inspectorial mentality and authoritarian approach that keeps disturbing the driver's attention by asking him if he is vigilant and asking him to confirm the same. It is, in my opinion, a nuisance to a good driver. TPWS is a red signal fixation. It is too limited an application and cannot meet our requirement of collision protection in all track areas. Dr Peter Winter, an expert on the European Train Control System which is the latest European technology and much more advanced than TPWS, was brought with a flourish to New Delhi in 2003-04 by the multinational lobbies, and I was made to face him before the Railway Board. He agreed that ACD was performing more functions than their system, needing no human inputs, and at a fraction of the cost. It embarrassed the lobbyists no end.

Q: ACD was introduced in Konkan Railways early this decade and later in NF Railways. How has it performed so far?
A: ACDs are almost like humans. There is a gestation period of three months for them to pick up the peculiar geographic layout features of the track routes. After initial survey, and after fine-tuning the network over 3 months, the results automatically logged in by the computers of the ACDs are downloaded and the records jointly analysed to previously set performance requirements of the Railway Ministry. Both for manufacture and performance ACD fully satisfied, and the fact sheets were jointly signed off by all stake-holders.
Q: Are there legitimate "operational issues" and adaptations necessary to ACD's which the Railway Board says have created delays, or is it repeated revision of norms by the Board and a lobby in the signaling department pushing for an expensive technology that has created hurdles?
A: This is a typical attempt to obfuscate and confuse, in the knowledge that there is no one who dare question them. Under electrical wire, GPS working was tested in 2001-2002 itself. There are no legitimate reasons to delay ACDs except those imaginary ghosts created by officials to save their own skin for not implementing ACD. The lobbies of retired and serving officers are working actively with foreign technology companies and ACDs requirements were continuously modified from 2002 onwards, even though every time the Board and ministry promised that it would not be changed. The moment the goal post is reached, and requirements satisfied, factoring in almost inimical testing attitudes too, another bright suggestion is moved in the Board's file, and again ACD goes back to another round of testing and trial. Many senior railway officials are genuinely ignorant and accept such suggestions slipped in by people who have successfully stalled the ACD all these years. As Railway minister, Mr Nitish Kumar used to tell a new Board member at an ACD meeting that the member's remarks showed he did not understand ACD, and set out explaining himself to the Board member how ACD works for the next ten minutes, while the member used to squirm in his seat. Being a technically knowledgeable man having no private agenda he could do that. From 2002-2003, the ACD was fully ready for preventing all the accidents which occurred at its technology development level. I would hold the officers who played this game of stalling squarely responsible for all the souls lost in railway collisions since then. I wonder what kind of karma they will suffer for their callous actions?
Both Miss Mamata Banerjee and Mr Nitish Kumar have supported the introduction of ACD in the past. Are you hopeful that, even now, a decade since ACD's became an option, the Railway Minister will be able to see through the lobbies of TPWS that are acting through the Railway Board? Miss Banerjee is simple and likable, I hold her in highest respect. Mr Kumar was straightforward and an outstanding humanist. He once mentioned to me that when he had earlier resigned with anguish due to so many deaths in a railway collision, why did not a single Board Member resign as well? I told him, Board members are just employees and either retire or get sacked. He cannot expect them to be like him. The Minister is expected to control them. The paradox is Miss Banerjee is the one who started this ACD against Board's advice in 1999 and finally it appears the Board has won and succeeded. Knowing her personally I feel, she does not deserve the game the bureaucracy is playing with her. I feel sad that she is being made to face all the ire for loss of life whereas the culprits are still at large. The mafia at the Board is difficult to break unless there is one courageous man to stand up within the service. I did that job in my time to the best of my ability. There are better people but they must stand up.
Q: Following from what you have said, how frustrating has it been to know that the ACD technology, if employed sooner, could have saved many lives in dozens of major accidents?
A: The situation is putrid. I told a member of the Board who was blocking me, how he would have liked if his son or son-in-law was in that ill-fated coach involved in the collision? He got furious and red in the face. Sad, but why and when did we become so indifferent? Again the same tragic event is being used to line their pockets by those who are responsible for safety of the travelling public. How do we tolerate white collar crime by intelligent people specially selected for serving the nation as responsible Class I officers, who gang up to do what they are doing for the last decade and more in Railways? What President APJ Abdul Kalam said to me is so very correct. I wasted time in India ~ he told me I should have taken that University seat I was offered in 1966 and gone to USA. Then India would have taken pride in my work and welcomed me as a great engineer-scientist and gladly adopted the foreign company implementing my technologies at 5-10 times the cost. Today these words haunt me. But, the dead souls cry out for justice and I still pray my country does not lack conscience.