Vivek Sahai Retires Amidst Bogus Austerity  

Vivek Sahai, Chairman, Railway Board in a period that witnessed Mamata Banerjee catapulting from Railway Minister to Chief Minister of West Bengal, retired on June 30, 2011. Vivek Sahai’s tenure atop Railways has seen him retain the key post of Member Traffic for over a year, when there has been no shortage of other eligible and honest traffic officers. Railway Board meeting minutes justified this dual-charge under the pretext of socalled austerity. ‘As a measure to contain expenditure from the top of the organization, it was decided that the post of Member Traffic, Railway Board, may be vested with Chairman, Railway Board till June 2011’, reads the revised minutes of a November 3, 2010 Board meeting. It was during this time that questions were raised in Parliament on un-filled posts in the Board. The Board’s decision allowed Sahai to keep holding both posts and remain all-powerful in the Board until the Bengal elections were done and dusted. 

On May 26, 2011 speaking to the media Vivek Sahai said he had no say in holding both posts and had been rewarded by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet for his 'good' work, such as increasing freight revenue. When asked by the media about the need for the Board’s decision to make it into an act of austerity, Sahai agreed that it was an austerity measure too. 

Setting precedent, and perhaps a way to double productivity or cut about the 13.50 lakh work force in half, Vivek Sahai’s austerity display as Member Traffic raises several questions. Firstly, how much did Sahai save? In other words, how much did past Members Traffic in Laloo Prasad Yadav’s era cost the nation? The salaries, perks, royal ‘saloon’ coaches for their travel, bands of orderlies, and obsequiousness from thousands of subordinates are one tiny story. As Member Traffic, Sahai hiked freight rates of iron ore in keeping with international market prices, thereby netting an extra Rs 1,700 crore by budget-time to cover for loading interference due to Maoists. Paradoxically, this action, which caused no any decrease in loading, exposes the work of previous Members Traffic. Rates for exported iron ore were deliberately left unchanged during the boom right up to May 2008. Between 2004-05 and 2007-08, submitting to lobbyists that include ex-Railway officers, Members Traffic enriched the iron-ore mafia by at least Rs. 17,000 crore. 

Now that the year of austerity in Railways has passed, and Vivek Sahai ends his 'sacrifices' that saved the nation the cost of a Member Traffic, it is apparent that the underlying factors that cause Railways losses of tens of thousands of crore every year have met no change. The destructive turf-war between departments over control personnel and finances has continued unabated. Railways still has no transfer policy, and transfers have remained the primary tool by senior officers to suppress independent voices and punish whistle blowers. The 1985 amendment to the RPF Act was supposed to have ended such deputation, and yet the corrupt IPS lobby still lords over RPF. The Santhanam Committee made its recommendations back in 1964, but Railway Vigilance remains subservient to the Railway Board, which media reports have shown to be the seat of corruption. None of the GM’s involved in recruitment corruption during Laloo Prasad Yadav’s tenure, some of whom were raided by CBI, have been punished. 

Despite CAG, CVC, Competition Commission, a dozens of media articles, Railways own Vigilance investigations, and the committee on procurement chaired by Vinod Dhall highlighting intense corruption, rampant cartelization, and gross inflation of rates at times 10-times market prices in supply contracts, no changes in procurement procedures have resulted, no officer punished, and no firm banned. Railways again lost at least Rs. 5,000 crore in supply contracts last year. With Railway vigilance instructed to back off, cases resulting from media reports are sitting with an under-staffed CBI, outside the purview of RTI. 

Information obtained from the CVC also shows how Sahai has personally scuttled investigations into the 1,000 crore Wagon Investment Scheme scam, which saw blatant corruption in the allotment of licenses to iron ore mafia during the iron-ore boom. The CVC has recommended major penalty for certain Railway Officer behind the first-come-first-serve scam. Case notings with Sahai as Member Traffic recommending no action. 

During Vivek Sahai’s austerity-marked tenure, media has also reported on the colossal bureaucratic bungle that is the construction of the Katra-Banihal stretch of the Kashmir Rail Link Project. Costs have now ballooned 5-times to nearly Rs. 20,000 crore. Greed and fear apart, what makes the construction a gigantic fraud is how Railways has continued its cover-up in official announcements. While construction is said to be on course, RITES has been quietly given another Rs. 17.3 crores contract to conduct another survey, 15 years after its flawed survey commenced the fiasco. Sources in the Board have confirmed no action has yet been taken on a file, stuck with Vivek Sahai for the past 3 months, calling for yet another alignment review. The need for another review exposes how the last review was fraudulent, intended only to silence a whistle blower. 

Under-charging of demurrage, wharfage, and stacking, which have caused losses of thousands of crore in the last decade continue. ‘Waiving of demurrage charges has become a routine practice defeating the very purpose of assessing and levying them’ states a CAG report. Up to 50% of demurrage / wharfage charges can be waived by officers vested such powers without them needed to record reasons in writing. 

One kind of austerity may have left, but the real Railway austerity is yet to arrive...