Vande Bharat’s rollercoaster ride

THERE is great excitement about Vande Bharat trains that even the deadly rail accident at Balasore, Odisha, has not snuffed out. The tragedy that claimed the lives of 289 passengers was one of the worst accidents in Indian Railways’ history and someone ought to be held responsible even if it is sabotage, as it is being made out by announcing a CBI inquiry even before the Railway Safety Commissioner comes out with the preliminary findings. Yet, the hype about Vande Bharat is so strong that its positivity can overcome the collective misery over the insecurity and unpredictability of an Indian train journey. In fact, Vande Bharat is the only success story that the Railways can talk about; for, most of the other coaches, engines and technology that were earlier introduced were imported. This is indeed a real desi triumph.

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It is alleged that there was an attempt to place the Chinese inside a railway facility that makes critical equipment for the Indian Army.

No wonder every new Vande Bharat train is flagged off by the Prime Minister himself and he is going to flag off five of them on June 26. But the number 26 has a greater significance for the team that built Vande Bharat, as I found out talking to long-retired friends from my reporting days as a railway beat correspondent some 20 years ago. No less than 26 officers were chargesheeted by the vigilance department of the Railway Board for building Train 18, which is now known as Vande Bharat. From Sudhanshu Mani, the General Manager, who was the head of the Integrated Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai, to junior officers, everybody involved in the design, conceptualisation, engineering and delivery of the train was slapped with charges of financial impropriety.

It all started with Mani taking over as the GM of ICF in August 2016, newly returned from an assignment in Germany. A man in a hurry to develop the cheapest semi-high-speed train got his team cracking. The deadline was 2018 and hence the project was called Train 18. And lo and behold, it was indeed ready to be rolled out in December 2018, an extraordinary feat for Indian engineers. Well, the flag-off happened only after Mani retired and not a single member of the original team was present at the function on February 15, 2019. But then, that is how the government works and often credit is stolen or it inadvertently falls in the lap of an unworthy successor. The original team could only have been happy to have seen the project through after the Board had reposed faith in them and given them a portion of the budget set apart to buy semi-high-speed coaches from abroad.

In their hurry to finish the project in just two years and bring out a world-class indigenous train, the team did do unorthodox things obviously, otherwise how would they have succeeded? But little did they realise that the success of this project would finish off the careers of some of them. Mani and his team wanted to make a train costing Rs 6 crore per coach when the European rates hovered around Rs 10-12 crore. After the flag-off of the first Vande Bharat train, the Chairman and the vigilance head of the Railway Board began a witch hunt, which resulted in chargesheets against officers who were meant to take up higher responsibilities. Their crime was that they were part of a successful team. A chargesheeted person cannot obviously get a promotion. So, they all suffered in silence.

Meanwhile, there is a sub-plot involving a Chinese company CRRC Corporation. The Railway Board was always visited by touts and middlemen working for various vendors, foreign and Indian. This used to be the scene a couple of decades ago, but it may have changed now. However, the Chinese offer was too good for some people in positions of power to ignore. They may have used the vigilance cases against Mani’s team to vigorously push the Chinese offer. While they succeeded in sidelining some officers, they could not buy the tendered 44 semi-high-speed trains from CRRC because of the Chinese intrusion in eastern Ladakh in 2020. There are those in the railway fraternity who believe that the Galwan clash is the providential reason for Vande Bharat’s success.

Had it not been for the Chinese misadventure and the treachery at Galwan three years ago, Train 18 would have been a failed project of a few discredited railway officers. In fact, it is even alleged that there was an attempt, as part of the semi-high-speed tender, to place the Chinese inside a railway facility that manufactures critical defence equipment for the Indian Army. And the officers who objected to this Chinese meddling had to pay dearly for their patriotism. With the Chinese tender out of the way, the production at ICF picked up and the trains started rolling out with much praise for the Board and the ministry. But the original team still had to answer ridiculous questionnaires that were meant to harass and humiliate and not to seek the truth. Finally, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) threw these cases out of the window, exonerating all 26 of the original team.

Not a single member of the team has ever been honoured by the Railway Board or the Prime Minister, who insists on flagging off Train 18. Not being punished, despite their colleagues’ best efforts, and getting exonerated by the CVC is their only badge of honour. Some of them lost out on securing positions which were rightfully theirs. Not a small sacrifice. The story of Train 18 and Team 26 has left one with no appetite to board a Vande Bharat coach because it will always be a reminder of the vile railway bureaucracy. The train is desi, so is the story. More Balasores, more rail tragedies will happen if initiative continues to be punished and sycophancy gets rewarded, which is the great Indian management trick.