Indian Railway's Tejas representing- Aspirations and Dreams of Millions!

Indian Railway's Tejas representing - Aspirations and Dreams of Millions!

Current poster boy of Indian Railways - Tejas Trains, max speed of 180 km/hr, equipped 360 degree rotating and inclining seats, glass windows giving panoramic view of sides and rooftop, providing all AC coaches in train, 9-inch LED screen back of every seat, coffee vending machines, vacuum bio toilets, touch free water taps in toilets, many more features... making it an airplane on the wheels for Indian public.

 Tejas trains, expresses the aspirations of new middle class- comprising millions in India, a fastest growing economy and IT engine of the world. India has lifted millions out of poverty during last 2 decades in its journey to become worlds 5th largest economy and so has, it lifted the ambitions of millions of its people. Indians today wants fly high, run faster and swim deeper. Indian domestic air traffic growth is the fastest on earth today, opening up to outer world where investments already are waiting to pour in the sector. Indian Railways, the eighth biggest employer in the world is trying to catch up to keep the dreams of millions in middle class alive of having best and fastest trains in India. Led by Railway Minister, Mr Suresh Prabhu from the front, a name thats known in every household of India today is making high promises to Indian society and trying fulfill those. 

Indian Railways is in talks with leading railway companies of world today, from Japanese in east, Chinese in Center to Europeans in west. Many MOUs are being signed with different countries, feasibility study of running bullet trains between Mumbai, Financial Capital of India and Ahmadabad is in progress with the help of Japanese. There are reports of feasibility study for running bullet trains between Delhi and Chennai are being awarded to Chinese companies. Spanish company TALGO is already conducting trail runs of coaches running at 180 km/hr on railways' existing tracks. If the trails get successful, services would be implemented nation wide. New trains will reduce the travel time between Mumbai and Delhi to 12 hrs from current 17 hrs. Indian railways, thanks to the vision of Mr Modi and his bonhomie with world leaders is making significant progress for receiving advanced technology for running faster trains.

Railways is one of the most important growth pillar of Indian economy, grossing revenue of $26B in 2015-16 year and is considered as mass mode of transport in most parts in India already. Indian businesses heavily depend on railways for transport of goods throughout India. Freight operations makes 70% revenue of railways, rest goes to passenger traffic. The problem with Indian railways is that it has been ignored for years, making it tool of public appeasement than vital utility... every year  until 2016 new projects were sanctioned without any funding, according to one estimate during 2004-2014, 99 project lines were sanctioned and one got completed. Total loss of passenger segment is around $3B, there is revenue through freight but passenger segment is consuming all the surplus. In all this misery, railways is loosing its share of freight to roads and air transports. To overcome this threat, Indian railways is in hurry to increase its freight and passenger revenue. Emphasis has been put on completing existing projects, new freight corridors like DMIC and EDFC has been put on expedite modes, advanced train coaches are being tested on existing tracks which can reach max speed of 200 km/hrs. 

Railways has understood the need of hour and is seeing many changes under current government - stations being cleaned regularly, gone are the days when you had to keep handkerchiefs on you nose in stations, bio-toilets are used on trains - creating green zone areas in some sections of country, free wifi has been provided on many stations in contract with Google, old and new stations being re-developed. But to take the benefit of transport, tourism and commerce, railways needs to upgrade itself and according to estimates it would take around $78B to complete existing projects. To overcome financial crunch, railways is testing TALGO coaches.

Tejas is the new train thats been launched in India to fulfill the dreams of this new India. Giving middle class the feel of highest standards in industry, providing every possible facility available, at the same time pitting it directly against airlines and fighting for premium segment. You name the facility and you will find it in Tejas. Tickets for 550 Km Mumbai to Goa journey are around Rs 2590 ($40) for executive and for Rs 1190 ($18) for AC chair-cars seats respectively, making these fair 25-30% premium than existing Rajdhani or Shatabdi Trains. Condition in India is that, youth is getting salaries which their parents received at the end of their services, middle class is growing exponentially, paving way for domestic tourism to go on high growth path and everyone wants to take benefit of this situation, among these ones is Indian Railways. 

First run of Tejas was scheduled to run during the last week of May 2017, making people believe the change is coming there way and eventually to become part of their lives. Feelings of pride started making rounds in the air, social media and many news papers were already celebrating and explaining every feature of the train to Indians, as this was gift from Indian Railways to Indian Middle class.

So far from "Indian Railways", we talked about 'Railways', now lets discuss 'Indian' part. We Indians consider public property like our neighbors'property and always a rightful place to throw our waste. You could see neighbors fighting because of this every morning in our colonies. More pathetic is the condition of bus stations, railway stations and govt offices, even public parks. It would be 8th wonder if you find these places neat and clean, there must  be a red spots of beetle nut 'PAN' or Gutkha at these places. Our trees and historical sites are used to create own history by lovers, you won't miss a heart with arrow cutting through it and names written on top and below of it - Asif loves Puja, Puja Loves Daniel, Daniel loves Fatima and many.. its fair and lovely world in secular India after all. How many of these lovers marry is a different story. Corners of buildings and Roads? these are considered as open Urinal in our country, imagine 600 Million Indian men peeing at the same time.... whole flora and fauna of the country will seek desperate help from gods 'Trahimam, Trahimam'... aaand at the same time our own women don't find a place to rest themselves. Hopefully this improves after 'National Clean City Mission' of Mr Modi.

So on first day of commencement of services of Tejas, to the disappointment of Railways, glass windows of car coaches were damaged. Railways made honest efforts to change the glasses on time to make the experience memorable for the passengers from Mumbai, but when same train reached Goa, real shocker came, passengers had damaged LED screens, stolen headphones, toilets were damaged and dirty, waste was thrown open in the coach. Every effort that was taken to make this journey memorable was in vain, passengers had made fun of all sincerity, why? because they just didn't care about facilities, old habits die hard.. no matter how good service you provide, we Indians just don't value it. It was the best journey they might have had in train but they just didn't care to have it memorable for next passengers or for whole of India. Like the previous headlines, these things also made it to the headlines in news papers all over the India. All the optimism and celebration around the train was gone, it was disgusting and people expressed frustration, some questioned- when you know the mentality of people, why did you even started such a service. Mind you, Mumbai and Goa are among the richest places in India, this was a premium train and still the same fate.

What it tells about us is we Indian's don't respect public property, we consider it as right to damage. Governments' property is actually our property, our own taxes helped build this infrastructure, is what we Indian's haven't understood yet. This misconception is what needs to be changed, it needs to be changed right from kids through home and school education. Had this been regular train, same middle class would have blamed and held poor people responsible for destruction and lectured that this was bound to happen, but today they are left naked as irresponsible and careless. Somewhere its also railways' fault that they didn't educate the people before using the train facilities and left the assets vulnerable.

Next test of this class would be the bullet trains running from Mumbai to Ahmadabad!!

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