Quo Vadis, ICF? And, why?

 

The Japanese are playing pricey for the supply of trains for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Corridor on the back of them funding the project. The Ministry of Railways had done right to order the ICF to make two trains for the High-Speed line to establish the price line and to take a major step towards Atmanirbhrata. It would have been a welcome challenge for the ICF to venture into the Standard Guage territory and to make truly high-speed trains for 250kmph operations. The Vande Bharat was only a semi-high-speed design although scalable to 200 with some tweaking.

But the news goes that the ICF has handed over this godsent opportunity on a platter to the BEML. I have nothing against the BEML, they are competent people and can deliver what they have been asked to do. But so could the ICF, and at much lower costs. It is a shame that ICF thinks that they can’t do it even though they designed and manufactured the Vande Bharat train in a record time of eighteen months, a feat never seen before anywhere in the world.

Let me try to understand what could have gone wrong with and within the ICF. Surely, they are no less confident today than they were in the year 2018, when they made the Train 18. Probably the Railway Board thinks that the ICF can’t and have, therefore, ordered so. But what does the Railway Board know about the design department, the bold procurement system, and the shop floor skills of the ICF? And, indeed what do they know about the innovative engineers of the ICF? After all wasn’t it the same Railway Board that, in one of the worst ever libelous campaigns destroyed the careers and lives of the great team of ICF.

Even if the Railway Board allowed the ICF to make the 250kmph train, would the ICF officialdom have taken the risks that such an ambitious project entails? Haven’t they seen the fate that befell the bold decision makers of ICF in the aftermath of the wildly successful Train 18?

Let me recount the story lest it should remain unsaid.

Those were the days! O, those were the days, when the Integral Coach Factory, Perambur was a Temple of Modern India. It was on the must-visit list of foreign dignitaries. The Government of India would showcase it as a great feat of industrialization. The Chinese Premier, Chou-en-Lai, during his visit on the 6^th of December 1956 wrote thus:

“This is a modernized Coach Factory. It is worthwhile for the Chinese to come and learn. This factory is well-built and well-organised. The technology and training given are very good. It is worthwhile for the Orientals to take pride in it.”

Indeed, the ICF was a stellar symbol of the baby steps that a newly independent India was taking in becoming Atmanirbhar – steel plants, irrigation and power projects, national highways, a locomotive factory at Chittaranjan, space research, dozens of scientific laboratories, and of course the ICF. More was to come later. But ICF, from the word go, got into the act and has been an icon of innovation and large-scale production since then. The ICF has so far designed over six-hundred types of railcars and has manufactured over seventy thousand of them making it the largest rail-car builder in the world. Starting from a humble 75kmph Swiss Schlieren design the ICF went on to make 130kmph air-conditioned coaches, the 3-tier AC being a real innovation in the field of rail travel. It even delivered a rail platform for mobile missile launchers for the armed forces. It seamlessly integrated the German LHB in its production lines and delivered coaches for speeds upto 160kmph.

The Vande Bharat Express is the jewel in the crown not only of the ICF but of the entire nation. It immediately caught international attention for its futuristic design, the ultra-low cost, a third of international prices, and the speed of delivery, from concept to prototype in eighteen months. The train successfully upset the applecart of international players and delivered a proverbial iPhone at Android prices. It, on the other hand, also aroused departmental jealousies in some hearts, who would rather import than innovate. The reason was not only a chance at corruption in international purchases but worse, a total lack of confidence in our own abilities to think big and deliver. Sudhanshu Mani’s idea brought the edifice of the import lobby, vested interests, and naysayers crashing down.

Not to give up, the same lobby then launched a massive vilifying campaign against the team that had brought this dream train to life. It also, to justify its nefarious game, condemned the train itself, calling it energy-inefficient, an incomplete work, done through non-transparent tenders, needing improvement etc. A spate of Vigilance cases was filed against twelve senior officers, GM and lower down. Nothing came of these cases; the CVC trashed them all and reprimanded the Railway Ministry too. But the delay cost at least one officer, who could have gone to become the Chairman, Railway Board, his possible rise. They all suffered years of ignominy and social stigma, “They must have done something wrong, after all.”

In a brutal environment reminiscent of the Nambi Narayan case of ISRO, which delayed the cryogenic rocket engine for several years, the production of Vande Bharat Express was stalled for over three years – the dedicated design and shop-floor teams were scattered and the supply chain dried up with brilliant MSME entrepreneurs turning cynical. The saboteurs’ lobby was so strong and well-entrenched that even the PMO, through its interventions, could not find a quick way out of the mire.

To justify their actions even the CRB went on record, without data, that the Vande Bharat train made thus far wasn’t up to the mark, was energy-inefficient and that a level playing field was not provided in tenders. Indeed, the pioneering team had never claimed that they had made a prefect product; prototypes can be anything but. Then started a long-drawn process of revising the technical specifications to improve the design and revamp the tender conditions to create a level playing field. But much ado about nothing – there were mere cosmetic changes in the design and the same vendor emerged the supplier for series production too repeatedly in tender after tender. Several tenders were issued and cancelled, all this leading to a loss of over three years of production, a period during which at least fifty semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains could have rolled out. But, whereas in the case of victimization of Nambi Narayan and loss of similar number of years at ISRO, the government has woken up and is fixing the perpetrators, those who sabotaged a far bigger national project, one that touches millions of lives, and one that the government now swears by, have gone unchallenged.

Do I, therefore, blame the ICF? Hmm..! They must have swallowed their pride to surrender such a great opportunity of becoming a true world player. Now, the BEML will become one albeit riding on the basic design of the ICF and sourcing from the ICF’s supply chain.

I wish you the best, BEML!

I don’t empathize with you, ICF! You could have tried harder.

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