Modernizing the Railway System – Experience from China

Preamble

India has begun to plan High Speed Rail (HSR) and will implement 2,000 km of network by 2020. The first one between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is under planning stage. A recent research study on HSR in India states that: “HSR creates opportunities for regional economic development by improving connectivity between large urban centres, as well as other small and medium cities along the corridors, and generates socio-economic benefits by improving access to employment, health, education and time savings.” In doing so it will also deliver sizeable reduction in energy in the long term for short haul travel as it will replace air and road transport, both high energy consuming transport options (See http://www.unep.org/transport/lowcarbon/PDFs/Role_of_High_Speed_Rail_Final.pdf) for detail findings and policy recommendations.

People Republic of China (PRC), henceforth called China, has developed by now is 19,000 km, which has been reported in the Indian media as well (April 21, 2016 Indian Express) and is expected to reach 30,000 km by 2020. The initial speed planned for the HSR was 380 km per hour (kmph); trains were run at about 310 kmph for a short period till an accident occurred in 2011 July that led to officially reported death of 40 people, the speed has been restricted to about 300 kmph now. China has developed its own HSR, learning from Shinkansen of Japan and Siemens’ technology of Maglev trains. There is one Maglev in Shanghai. But, after that China has not pursued that route. There are some learnings for us in India from the experience of modernizing railway system in China.

I am aware that by taking a position of what China has achieved, I am committing a blasphemy. Some Indian media peddling jingoistic nationalism, a nationalism constructed on hatred and deriding the others (and China has been constructed as the other), and hence suspect this might be considered as blasphemy. Also, as the greatest civilization that has achieved everything in the past and know everything about how to make our future society, we need not learn from any other country, and not China, who has taken cudgels against us, as we read in everyday paper. But, since our Honourable Prime Minister has been impressed with China’s development, so he said when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, I am writing this article that it might be spared the ignominy of being called ‘anti-national’. This article does not mean that I have uncritical adulation of China. Anyway, I would like to share what I have observed in China over last about 12 years of my visits to the country.

First high speed trains were operationalised in China in April 2007. One day in April 2007, when we were to take a train from Tianjin to Beijing, a friend said that today the trains may not run because some trains were being converted into high speed trains and the one between Beijing and Tianjin was one of them. Since then, the HSR network covers 28 of country’s 33 provinces and autonomous regions.

So what some may argue and others would say what about those who cannot afford the price of the fast trains? One is skeptical about modernization process as that may also mean discontinuing the low-speed trains for the high-speed months. It is therefore interesting to experience the railway facilities created in China and understand the system, something that is relevant for us in India. The HSR in China works within the larger context of national railway network and local subway network.

Railway Infrastructure in Cities

At this point in time, there are multiple railway stations in all the mega cities. For example, Beijing has Beijing central, Beijing west, Beijing north and Beijing south. Beijing south is especially constructed for HSR. Each one of them is no wconnected by a metro (called subway in China). The existing stations were upgraded to provide this metro connection as well as for the HSRs.

In the month of June 2008, Beijing west station was under repairs like all the public buildings in the city for the Olympics. Our taxi dropped us at the first floor level of this station. The ground floor is for pedestrian entry, for those who have taken a public bus to the station. The bus stand is adjacent to the railway station. The subway line 1 is linked to this station. Subway line 2 connects Beijing central station and Beijing North station. In Shanghai; there is Shanghai central and Shanghai south station located on lines 3 and 2 respectively. In Tianjin, the central station is connected by line 2 and Tianjin west by line 1. Thus, anyone traveling by train, HSR or not, gets to the station by public transport conveniently connected. All stations also have bus links or bus stations adjacent so that those not able to afford taxi or a subway could take a bus.

Photo 1: Tianjin Central Station

Photo Credit: Author

The tickets are scrutinized at the entrance of the station before one enters. Then the luggage is screened for security purposes before entering the main hall. I have seen these machines since 2004, my first visit to China. In the regular times, all these happen in an orderly way, through queues. The peak travel seasons such as the Chinese New Year, or May day holidays, see jamming of railway stations. The cities are very well equipped to handle crowd. But, now, to reduce the episodes of such peaking, China has done away with a few large vacations to many short holidays.

That apart; once inside the main building, in any station, for us in Beijing west station in 2008, we were not prepared for what we saw. Now, we have seen such stations in Tianjin, Shanghai and many other small city stations. For the first time we saw that each train had a waiting room or waiting area demarcated. In some stations, the waiting area is exclusive for the train and those without a ticket to that train are not allowed inside. In some stations, there are common waiting areas and there are boarding gates to the train. For each departing train, whether a slow passenger or a new bullet train and the waiting room number mentioned on the large display board in the main hall. On large stations, the waiting rooms are at ground and first floor level. The Tianjin central station looks like an airport and so does Shanghai south station (See Photos 1, 2 and 3).

Photo 3: Shanghai South Station from Inside

Photo credit: Author 

The underground area of the station is for the parking of private vehicles and queuing of the taxis for picking up the passengers. There is also bus station connection for those not affording to take a taxi or even affording to take a metro. This leaves the ground level space open for constructing a large railway station to hold large number of people at a time.

One is allowed to enter the waiting hall only if one has a ticket to travel. This means that from here on, only the passengers are allowed, which cuts down unnecessary crowds at the station and on the platform. The gate to the platform is opened up only 30 to 40 minutes before the departure of the train. For bullet commuter trains, such as between Beijing and Tianjin and so on, the boarding is allowed only half an hour before the train. Till then, no passengers are allowed on the platform. The trains have food stalls, toilets (which have cleaning attendants throughout the day, at least in the major cities), and sitting areas. Irrespective of what class of ticket one purchases or what class of train one chooses, the railway facilities enjoyed are the same for all. The farmers, the migrant labour, the international executives, etc. all enjoy the same level of facility.

Photo 3: From Waiting Room To Platform

Photo credit: Author

Different Category Trains

In 2008, we were taking a train to Changsha, Hunan province, the south central province, at a distance of 1700 km from Beijing, which the ‘Z’ category non-stop train we took covered in 13 hours. We took a soft seat, which is four berths in a compartment in a sleeper train whereas a hard seat in a sleeper train is six berths. This train had new coaches and our compartment had a television screen inside, with six channel options. Another striking feature was spotlessly white bed sheets covering the berth, and a quilt with spotlessly white cover.

The HSR trains are C, D and G category trains. The slowest trains are ‘N’ series trains. The latter stop at all the stations on the route and hence take much longer than ‘Z’ or HSR trains. They are also the cheapest. The ‘N’ category train that I traversed between Beijing and Tianjin in 2005 took 2 hours. The ‘D’ category HSR takes now 34 minutes between the same two stations. Till 2011, Beijing-Tianjin HSR took 28 minutes but now due to speed reduction the time has increased by 6 minutes. Even ‘N’ series trains, have clean sheets, as I had chance to experience in a train we took to Tangshan from Beijing.

There are other categories of the trains. Slower than the HSR are the ‘Z’ series trains. Slower than them are ‘T’ series and then ‘K’ series trains. ‘N’ series are the slowest. Faster one wants to travel, higher the price of ticket to be paid. By introducing HSR, the slower trains continue to work and provide services to those who would want to travel to small towns and those who have low affordability.

Important Learnings

What we see here is ‘Inclusive Development’, that which includes all sections of the population while upgrading and modernizing infrastructure. Fast trains require better infrastructure at the stations, and this is then shared by all those who can afford only slow trains. This is a first lesson one can learn, of differential categories for differentiated affordability built and managed in such a way that common infrastructure benefits all, irrespective of their paying class. There is a great sense of ‘public goods’ in China. Railway infrastructure is one such major public good.

Other interesting learning for us is to introduce an element of security at the stations. First thing required is to prevent the crowding of the stations, through allowing only passengers inside the waiting halls. The other security measure is through station design. In India people loiter on the railway platforms for various reasons; lack of night staying space, use of toilets and fill water. These are the development problems that need to be addressed nonetheless before embarking on modernizing infrastructure, something we have forgotten in this race to modernize infrastructure for globalization.

Third is giving due respect to train travelers by providing space for them to wait for their trains. This would work if the people travel light, as we see in China (those with large luggage have to check it in and pay for it) and if the trains go on time. Both are not difficult for us. The fourth learning is cleanliness, something that needs no elaboration. ‘Swachhata’ has become an important ‘motto’ for us with the initiative from the Prime Minister.

The last is pricing. Instead of reducing the train fares our Railway Ministers have been habitually doing, the surplus could be used for improving railway travel for our people and people would appreciate that more than the conditions they are traveling at the moment. Our people, large majority of them travel by train, deserve secure, orderly and healthy travel. Modernization does not mean exclusions, that is an important lesson one can draw from the experience of rail travel in China.

PMAY’s ‘Affordable Housing’ - The Theatre of Absurd

‘Brexiting’ has many explanations, one of them being a housing crisis amidst many other ills of globalization, felt across England including in London. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta states (Indian Express June 25, 2016), “if this is a revolt against globalisation, then this vote should be read, above all, as a vote against the city of London which has come to epitomise open immigration, financialisation of the economy, elites that are out of touch, a home for crony capitalism driven by real estate speculation ….”.

The signs were there of disaffection in the housing market even in London. The Housing and Planning Act, 2016, which when introduced as a bill in 2015, invited huge protests particularly from those who could live in London due to Council Housing (social housing), that was available on rental basis. The bill, now an act, sought to sell off council housing to the occupants through provision of Right to Buy, which meant that those who cannot buy had to leave main parts of London to live in suburbs, which was already happening.

The city of London was also demolishing council housing for high-end real estate projects that were extremely expensive. Anna Minton writes in the Guardian on April 20, 2016 that the cheapest one-bedroom apartment in Elephant Park development on former council housing at Heygate Estate in South London would cost £608,000, absolutely unaffordable to large segments of population. And a quarter of it was to supposedly ‘affordable housing’, to be made available at 80% of the market rent! Affordable housing has become euphemism for incremental privatization in housing, promoting paradigm of ownership housing. A large segment of population prefer to live in rental housing as they cannot afford ownership housing and the Housing and Planning Act, 2016, did not have anything for them.

‘Affordable Housing 2022’ named now as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) too is promoting ownership housing when only 61% of urban households have ownership housing and 35% live in rental housing as per the 69^th Round of National Sample Survey data (of 2012) in India. In an urbanizing economy, when continuous rural to urban migration is expected, housing programme should be addressing needs for both, rental as well as ownership housing. In particular, public housing, as Britain and other European countries’ experience shows, is rental, with rent subsidy paid to the housing corporation (developer) directly by the government.

The PMAY has two important components, one in-situ slum rehabilitation (ISSR) through private sector participation using land as a resource and second Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP). The ISSR is the new name of the famous (or infamous) Slum Rehabilitation Scheme (SRS) introduced in Mumbai in 1995. Since 1995, 0.33 million dwelling units (29% of the total slum dwelling households of 2011) have been sanctioned (upto 2014 August) in the city under the SRS and none after the announcement of the ISSR under the PMAY. Only 82,000 units have been completed making SRS tenements available to only 7% of the households living in slums.

In Ahmedabad, SRS has been approved in only 12 of the total 834 slums in city. Ahmedabad’s SRS scheme was announced after Gujarat “The Regulation for the Rehabilitation and Redevelopment of the Slums 2010”. After the ISSR, about 30,000 dwelling units have been sanctioned in Gujarat under ISSR, which would be about 8% of the total slum households enumerated in 2011 population census in the state. At all India level, just 41,200 dwelling units under ISSR have been sanctioned, which will reach 0.3% of the total slum dwelling households in urban India. The numbers are so low because the SRS is viable only in the locations where the land prices are very high as private sector does not step in without certain minimum assured margin of profit. The former SRS and now the ISSR has not been successful because of it is its total dependence on the private sector to deliver what in other context could have been called ‘social housing’. The Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), which now has discontinued, had various options available for slum redevelopment and not just SRS, and had possibility of success except for its unnatural death on the change of national government in 2014 May.

The Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) is private sector led construction of new houses for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), defined as those whose annual household income is Rs 3 lakhs or below. Total of about 423,000 dwelling units have been sanctioned across India and which would reach only 3% of those currently living in slum housing. But, the AHP housing is expensive, costing any price between Rs. 7.5 lakhs to Rs. 10 lakhs and this would require the household to pay Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 9,500 monthly instalment for a loan of 15 years, that is 30% to 40% of their income. This is absurd and hence unworkable.

Besides, the AHP is being development in Affordable Housing belt, which, in case of Ahmedabad is outside the city’s third ring road, about 15 to 20 kms from the city centre. The housing constructed under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), BSUP (Basic Services for the Urban Poor) component, which had large subsidy, was constructed way outside the city and did not have takers. Only 78% of BSUP housing units are occupied as of mid-2016. Peripheral inaccessible location away from livelihood opportunities is the major reason for such high vacancy rate in the BSUP housing.

Has PMAY learnt anything from the past? Have we as a nation learnt anything from the past? Have we learnt anything from the housing protests and discussions in other countries or not? Nothing. It is the same rhetoric of ‘Affordable Housing’ seen in Britain, the cause of great disaffection leading to Brexit. The ISSR is euphemism for handing over prime lands of the city to the real estate sector, what can be called speculative capitalism. AHP is a way of diverting the subsidies to the builders in the name of the poor, again fuelling speculative capitalism. It is, probably conveniently, forgotten that the cities will not be looking smart without adequate housing for the poor? The subject of ‘Smart Cities’ will be handled in another article but currently both the slogans, Smart Cities and Affordable Housing sound like a Theater of absurd.