On a few strategies for a sustainable turnaround of the Indian Railways

Abstract

The paper focuses on evaluation of the few turn around strategies available with the Indian Railways to improve its operating ratio. The strategies examined are (a) choice of electric traction and the pace of electrification (b) improvement of utilization of network capacity (c) bench marking of maintenance expenses (d) benchmarking staff deployment and (e) inflation indexed tariff. The paper demonstrates that judicious application of these strategies can have substantial impact on the profit margin of the Indian Railways.