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Journalism of Courage
Union Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw on regulating telecom and upgrading safety systems in Railways. This session was moderated by Deputy Editor Liz Mathew and National Business Editor Anil Sasi
Anil Sasi: With regard to the railways, there seems to be a gap between demand and supply. The passenger traffic demand is approximately to the tune of 1,100 crore annually while the supply is about 800 crore. When it comes to larger network planning, are you looking at addressing this demand-supply gap?
Any country of our size requires multiple transportation modes to be developed simultaneously. Until 1950, the railways had a very dominant role in transportation. Over a period of time, since railways was an isolated organisation, with its own budget and processes, it was starved of investment.
When Atalji started the Golden Quadrilateral Project, the thought was to have a golden quadrilateral for highways and railways. Unfortunately, the investment in railways could never come. There was a structural issue because of which railways lost out on cargo and the demand-supply gap in case of passengers became prominent.
In 2014, Modiji merged the railway budget with the general budget. From about Rs 35,000 crore annual budgetary allocation, he has increased it to Rs 2,40,000 crore. In the last 9.5 years, we’ve added 26,000 km of new tracks. Today we are adding new tracks at a rate of 14 km a day. Almost 94 per cent of the network is already electrified.
Anil Sasi: There is still an element of cross-subsidy in railway fares between freight and passengers. While you have some degree of flexibility now on fares on trunk routes, the operating ratio still continues to be fairly high at 97-98 per cent. Does the flexibility give you more headroom to bring down the cross-subsidy element? Given the high operating ratio, does it give you enough surplus to work on things like safety?
I don’t think we can look at it purely from the prism of subsidy, cross-subsidy or flexibility in fares. Railways carry a social obligation, and that’s important. In every train today, a person travelling over 1,000 km pays Rs 450 to 500 depending on the train track. We are also catering to the lowest income segment and should not look at it from this prism of cross subsidisation.
Even in the case of cargo, the difference between road and rail carrying one tonne for one km is Rs 2, which is almost 62 per cent cheaper compared to road. If you take a slightly bigger perspective, if we carry more cargo by rail by increasing capacity, having better technology, more locomotives, wagons, better terminal facilities, we’d have to spend less on imported oil. The pollution load of the road sector is nine times compared to the rail sector. That much carbon emission is saved, cost is saved, congestion in terms of time of travelling is avoided.
Anil Sasi: The Data Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP) and the Telecom Act were much-needed reforms, but the data bill seems to offer government entities blanket exemptions and the Data Protection Board is not as empowered as it was envisaged earlier. On the Telecom Act, there seems to be some confusion on whether OTT platforms are included. Can you clear the air on that?
It is very straightforward. In the DPDP Act, the exemption is very narrow and clearly defined. There is no blank exemption to the government. In the case of telecom, you have to define what is being transported… So the carrier is regulated by the Telecom Ministry. The content is regulated by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The financial services are regulated by the Ministry of Finance. Overall, the internet and OTT world are structurally regulated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology through the IT Act.
There has to be accountability, both of the platform as well as the users. We are working on the overhauling of the entire digital legal framework. We are working on four legislations
Liz Mathew: As we walk into an election, there is a belief that YouTube and that kind of communication has a lot of influence on public opinion. How well are we prepared in terms of safeguarding democracy?
All over the world, democracies are worried about the influence of social media on the democratic process, especially after the AI-related developments. The promise of social media was that everybody gets a voice. That promise had an inherent understanding that whoever is publishing views on social media would also be accountable for it, be cognizant of the legal structure, social realities, make sure that nobody else is hurt. Today’s social media has become free for all, where anybody can write anything derogatory about anybody else. So, many countries have already taken steps, which in a different context would be seen as suppressing freedom of speech. But they have taken those steps because that is necessary for society and protection of democracy. We have a legal structure, which addresses some of the concerns to some extent, but we need a much stronger and more comprehensive legal structure, where what is right, what is wrong, there has to be some judgment on that. There has to be accountability, both of the platform as well the users. We are working on the overhauling of the entire digital legal framework. We are working on four legislations. The first and second, we have already enacted in the Parliament. There are two more. One is a law, actually. The fourth is not a law, it’s more of a framework.
Liz Mathew: With the opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the Railway Ministry has a key role to play. How well prepared are you for the massive crowds that are expected?
We have a structure and a work ethos which is very different from 10 years back. We are in a position to take up any big challenge. Practically every organisation, from the UP government to the highway system, telecom system or the railway system, we are all prepared.
You are consuming content which the algorithm wants you to consume. When the platform is no longer a platform in the true sense, should the safe harbour be a safe harbour in the original sense?
Soumyarendra Barik: You’re working on the Digital India Bill. The biggest gripe is that the way we’ve envisaged the concept of safe harbour for intermediaries, which was heavily borrowed from the US concept, was flawed. As we move towards a more complex system of intermediaries over the internet, how do you think safe harbour has changed since we first thought of it?
The context then was that the internet was an emerging thing. People who wanted to take the internet to the general public, said, ‘How do I limit my liability to somebody who puts content on the net, for which I’m not responsible?’ That was the construct. The context has totally changed. Every platform moderates content as per their own policies. It’s not as per law. The investment they make in moderation is different in different geographies, depending on their own priorities. When you say an algorithm is defining what will be seen, that’s not equitable either. You are consuming content which the algorithm wants you to consume. When the platform is no longer a platform in the true sense, should the safe harbour be a safe harbour in the original sense? That’s my question.
Soumyarendra Barik: When the Apple threat notification issue came, you and the MoS put the ball in Apple’s court, that they have to justify why this was triggered. Since then, some developments have happened but the concern was initially raised because it seemed that some people who had received the notifications were either from the Opposition or people from civil society or the media who are seen to be little critical of the government. Is there an understanding about why the notification was triggered? Also, why people from that particular strata?
You have answered your own question. You’re saying that strata of the society ‘seemed’ to have. That means there is also a significant number of people who received, who are not in that ‘seemed to have received’ category. We have clarified everything. Apple has come out with a statement. Every company in the world has a standard language in which they issue notices. There is absolutely nothing abnormal in this case.
Ritu Sarin: Apple has come to India for one or two meetings. What was the result of those meetings?
Once the inquiries are complete, it will be known to everybody. The technical investigation is still going on.
I don’t think we can look at it purely from the prism of subsidy, cross-subsidy or flexibility in fares. Railways also carry a social obligation, and that’s very important… We are also catering to the lowest income segment
Anil Sasi: In the Pegasus case, the panel investigating it had said that the government had not cooperated.
They never said this. There was absolutely no lack of cooperation. We wanted that investigation to be absolutely objective and done by the expert committee. Whatever they asked, we provided — the technical help, data required, documents required. We never took care of the hospitality, which we were not supposed to do. It was an absolutely objective and purely technical investigation.
Liz Mathew: As the Railways Minister, what lessons did the Balasore train accident teach you?
The entire team and system worked as one, which was committed to saving every possible life and making sure that every family affected by the incident would get the best possible support. We have invested more than Rs 1, 27,000 crore in the last 10 years to develop new safety systems. All the railway systems in the world moved to automatic train protection in the ’80s and ’90s. In 2016, Automatic Train Protection (ATP) was trialed on a live train system for the first time in India.
ATPs need a complex certification system, called Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL4), which means if something is operating for 10,000 years, it will fail only once. It took the Railways three years to get SIL4 certification for the entire system. It is an indigenously developed system, which is a matter of pride for us. We have now reached a level where the industry and the railways are capable of installing about 1,500 km to about 2,000 km (of railway lines) every year.
Soumyarendra Barik: The NSO Group, which makes the Pegasus software, has said that it does not sell the software to anyone else but a government or government agency. A lot of unease about Pegasus stems from the fact that the Indian government has never really clarified if it has ever bought Pegasus or not.
Has the TMC come out with a statement, clarifying if they have not bought it or not? The governments of West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh are also governments. Why do you look at the government as only the Central government? There was a proper Supreme Court-supervised investigation. We have clarified everything. I have submitted a reply in Parliament.
Vikas Pathak: There has been a lot of talk about Digital India but there have also been internet blackouts. A report revealed that there were 84 internet blackouts in 2022, making India the country with the most internet blackouts in the world. What is the balance between citizens’ freedom to communicate and the concerns that the government cites?
All over the world, there are standard operating processes built for law and order situations. There was a time when curfews were quite common. Agencies responsible for maintaining law and order will have to take certain steps.
Jatin Anand: The BJP is understood to have told most of its Rajya Sabha ministers and several MPs to contest the Lok Sabha elections. Would you prefer contesting from Rajasthan or Odisha?
I’m a disciplined karyakarta of the BJP, who understands what is expected of me and what is the meaning of karyakarta. I will do exactly what the party tells me. The party asked me to go to Maharashtra to organise the Rajya Sabha election. I went there. The party sent me to Madhya Pradesh for Assembly elections. I took a house there, lived and worked there.
Upasika Singhal: Why have there been so many delays in the tendering for the New Delhi railway station’s redevelopment?
We are developing about 1,309 railway stations across the country and the progress on most is very good. New Delhi has a special challenge. We are located in an area which is very congested. So the station should decongest not just railway transportation. Our PM’s mandate to us is very clear — the station has to join both sides of the city and become the city centre. It has to be a facilitator for all modes of transportation in that area. We have to integrate metro, intercity buses, interstate buses and cars. This creates a very large network outside the station. A complete road network gets built around the station that will decongest a large part of the city for many years to come. We should not take that as a station project but look at it as a project to create a transportation hub for a large part of the city.
The price quoted for the tender was high, so we cancelled it and are re-doing the tender. We have now revised the entire design and made it fully perpendicular.
Harish Damodaran: What is the status of the Dedicated Freight Corridor project?
The Dedicated Freight Corridor is very important because the capacity of railways needs to significantly increase. The thought process in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was a golden quadrilateral for highways and a golden quadrilateral for railways. In 2005, the first papers started getting published on it. In 2007, the project was approved. Before 2014, zero km of the dedicated freight corridor was done. Now, practically the entire network is done, except for a small section which had design flaws. So we have revised the design. The system is designed to take about 400 trains a day. It’s already taking more than 300 trains. It has helped us decongest the East and West parts of the golden quadrilateral. As we go forward, more capacity will be created, especially in sections that are highly congested.
Jatin Grover: In the telecom sector, two operators — Jio and Airtel — occupy 70 per cent of the market share. You had earlier said that there were no signs of duopoly in the sector. How do you see it now? Vodafone and BSNL are continuously losing subscribers in the market.
I see this sector as a sunrise sector. There are new technologies, new investments. Close to Rs 2 lakh crore investment is happening in the 5G rollout. BSNL is reviving in a very systematic and methodical way. (We have) indigenously developed 4G and 5G technology. Today, there are only four countries in the world that have end-to-end telecom technology stack — China, South Korea, Sweden and Finland. India has become the fifth country to have an end-to-end telecom technology stack and the entire world, including the US, Europe and Australia, are showing interest in importing technology from us. That technology deployment has started. By Diwali, you’ll see a significantly rolled-out network of BSNL 4G, which is upgradable to 5G.
Amitabh Sinha: The proposed alignment of the new Pune-Nashik speed corridor is very close to the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) centre in Pune, which is your major radio telescope. It was feared that this would affect the quality of signals captured by GMRT. Has that issue been resolved?
We are working on it. It’s a very complex issue because that is one of the observatories that we are proud of. We are trying to figure out a solution. We looked at either bypassing it on the right side of the map or on the eastern side or western side.
