Of Rexine and Railways

When we were building the prototype Train-18 in ICF, we were insisting on and buying the best-in-class material. A delegation of Rexine and PVC Flooring manufacturers visited me. They were protesting that we were buying German products and not encouraging Indian industry. The seat upholstery – rexine, fabric and rubber flooring – made in Germany, were available in India against Rupee payment. So, we were absolved of the moral guilt of importing. These are special fire-retardant materials conforming to EN-45545 HL3, a German standard for fire resistance and flame, smoke and toxin free burning even when they combusted. This standard is followed the world over as an essential safety measure.

The delegation that came to see me complained that we had never asked or demanded from them the need to develop interiors to the EN standard. They also promised to match the best German supplies if challenged, and at lower prices. The train construction was well underway and we had already ordered the fabric, rexine and flooring for the prototypes. So, I promised to involve them in future purchases. After all we were making only the first two trains as prototypes.

Well, after listening to them it was my turn to question them on the poor quality they had been supplying. I told them that even the current supplies that they were making, of rexine etc. was so inexcusably poor and that I found it difficult to repose much faith in their promises. What they told me was an eye opener. 

One of them brought out two samples of rexine upholstery material. One sample had a good and dense fabric backing with a thick and robust layer of blue PVC coated on it. The other one was a feeble fabric with the thinnest PVC coating. He said, “Sir, you in the Railways insist on buying poor quality at the lowest prices. What can we do? We must cut corners to make even the smallest profit.” This second, poor piece, is a sample of what we supply to the Railways for forty to fifty rupees a square meter. The better one is what we supply to several State Transport Corporations for the seats of their buses; the price they pay is a hundred seventy-five rupees per square metre, four times your price.

And, then he dropped the bombshell, “Sir, do you know what specification the STCs follow? They follow RDSO specifications. He showed me the Purchase Orders from two State Transport Corporations as proof of their effective purchase systems. You can see the UPSRTC purchase order in the picture above.

This, sadly, is the state of our purchase system in the Railways where all departments must be held guilty.  The Stores Department that insists on expanding the vendor list in some pseudo democratisation of equal opportunity to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. The Finance that with its insistence on price, and price alone, doesn’t care about the quality. But the biggest culprit is the technical department, which meekly surrenders to the other two and doesn’t enforce its responsibility and rights to get the best value for money - durable, safe, and low-maintenance material.

The compulsion to play it safe makes us accept poor quality even when we are consciously aware of our technical guilt. Repeated tenders with fly-by-night-operators, masquerading as OEMs, drive down the prices to unsustainable levels. The failure of the purchase system is all pervasive; rexine was just an example. The ultimate result is an unforgivable quality, low reliability, pathetic levels of customer satisfaction, and repeated purchase of the same poor stuff, again and again.

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