Indian Railways, which comprise the chief mode of organised transportation system, are the nation’s single largest undertaking. Making a small beginning in April 1853 when the first ever railway train in India commenced its jouney from Mumbai to Thane, a stretch of only 34 kilometres, Indian Railwways emerged to be the Asia’s largest and the world’s second largest railway systems under a single management.
The Indian Railways had a vast network of nearly 7000 stations spread over a route length of 64,000 kilometres.
About 22 per cent of the route kilometre, 32 per cent of running track kilometre and 31 per cent of total track kilometre is electrified. This is the second biggest electrified system in the world, the first being in the Commonwealth of independent States. Further, electrification was planned and by the end of the Tenth Plan more than 70 per cent of freight traffic was expected to be on electric traction.
The Indian Railway system is now divided into 16 zones. Each zone is headed by a General Manager, who is responsible to the Railway Board for all the zonal affairs such as operation and maintenance of zonal railways and the financial matters pertaining thereto.
In recent years, the trend has been towards modernisation of Railways. More routes have been electrified, production of steam locomotives has been discontinued and replaced by electric and diesel locomotives. Signalling and telecommunications have made much headway in modernisation, the standard of track has been brought to a level to run higher speed trains on trunk routes and important main lines, and more amenities have been provided for the common passangers.
Road Transport
State Highways and Major District Roads: The State highways and major district roads form the secondary road system and are the responsibility of the State Government and are maintained throught various agencies in the State and Union Territories.
Road Network: With 30.15 lakh kilometres of road length. India can boast as having the third largest road network in the world. From a road length of about 4 lakh kilometres in 1950-51, the road network has expanded more than ten folds.
Despite this impressive growth in road network, about 27 per cent of villages in India remain without any road link while 57 per cent villages do not have all weather roads. Less than half of the total road length has a metalled surface, most of the rural roads are unsurfaced, unmetalled or ‘kuchcha’ roads. In term of area and population, the total road length in the country works out to about 19 km for every 100 sq km of area and about 80 km for every one lakh of population. The surfaced road length is about 13 km for every 100 sq km of area and about 61 km for every one lakh of population.
Air Transport
Air transport in India operates at three levels. At the international level Air Indian operates its services to the five continents. Domestic services are operated by the Indian Airlines which also operates flight to the neighbouring countires. The third services, viz., Vayudoot, which intially operated its services in the north-eastern region of the country where surface transport was inadequate and terrain difficult, has now extended its services to other parts of the country. Recently, private airlines such as Sahara, Jet Air, UP Air, Jagson, etc. have also een introduced in India.
A helicopter service operated by the Pawan Hans Ltd. has been introduced since October 1985, with the obejctive of meeting the requirements of petroleum sector, including ONGC. Now Pawan Hans also operates services to inaccessible areas and difficult tarrains, provides tourist services, and undertakes intra-city transportation for the carriage of passengers and mail.
Major Airports
There are five international airports, 88 domestic aerodromes and 28 civil enclaves in the country. The international airport are: Mumbai (Sahar); Kolkata (Dum Dum); Delhi (Indira Gandhi); Chennai (Meenambakham) and
Thiruvananthapuram. Some international flights also operated from other airports too. The operation, management, maintenance, planning and development of international airports is done by the International Airport of India (IAAI) which was set up in 1972.
Among the major domestic airports are the aerodromes at Ahmedabad, Agartala, Agra, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Kolkata, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Khajuraho, Lucknow, Mangalore, Nagpur, Patna, Ranchi, Shillong. Thiruvanathapuram, Tiruchirapalli, Udaipur, Varanasi, etc. Besides, there are civil enclaves in many of the aerodromes of the defence forces.
The domestic aerodromes which were earlier managed by the Civil Aviation Department of the Government of India, are now looked after by the National Airport Authority of India, which was established in 1986. The NAAI is responsible for the management, construction, main-tenance, development and other operational functions at the domestic aerodromes.
Privatisation of Five Major Airports
The Union Cabinet approved a proposal of the Civil Aviation Minsitry of January 12, 2000 to privatise the airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and the new international airport in Bangalore on a thirty-year lease. To secure this objective, the government proposes to amend the Airports Authority of India (AAI) Act, 1994. The revenue earned on this score would not go to the Consolidated Fund of India, but to the AAI for use in cross-subsidising other airport. The AAI will work out detailed guidelines on the leasing process and Union Cabinet will decide on the number of years for which each airport would be leased out.
Shipping
Shipping plays an important role in India with a vast coastline of about 7,516 km and over 2 million sq. km of Exclusive Economic Zone. However, country’s shipping tonnage, through sizeable in magnitude, does not comapre favouable with other maritime nations of the world. At present, Indian shipping has the largest merchant shipping fleet among developing countries and ranks 17th in the world in shipping tonnage.
As on April 1, 2001 there were 122 shipping companies of which one, vis., the Shipping Corporation of India is in the public sector and the remaining are in the private sector. The Shipping Corporation of India owns 112 vessels nearly half of India’s total merchant fleet. The top 12 companies, including the Shipping Corporation of India, make up for 90 per cent of the total shipping tonnage.
Of the 102 shipping companies, 65 are engaged exclusively in coastal trade, 26 in overseas trade and the reamining (including the public sector company) carry on overseas as well as coastal trade. Even with such large number of companies and substantial shipping tonnage, Indian ships carry only about 43 per cent of country’s seaborne trade of which petroleum accounts for a major portion (54%).
Major Ports
There are 12 major ports and 181 minor working ports in India handling 90% of the sea-bome trade.
The major ports on the west coast of India are Mumbai, Kandla, Marmago, New Mangalore, Cochin and Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Nhava Sheva) while Tuticorin, Chennai, Visakhaptanam, Paradip Kolkata-Haldia and Ennore (near Channai) are the major ports on the east coast.
Mumbai is the biggest port in the country. It is a natural harbour and handles more than one-fifth of the total traffic of the ports. The bulk of the traffic consists of petroleum products and dry cargo.
Kolkata is a riverine ports handling diversified commodites. It is the largest terminal ports in South Asia. Haldia dock-system is in operation since February 1977. It has a fully equipped containerised berth. Its mechanised dock stream of Kolkata supplements the facilities already availbale at Kolkata ports. It mainly handles coal, petroleum products and dry cargo.
Kochi is a natural on the west coast. It largely handles petroleum products, fertilisers, raw materials and general cargo.
Kandla is a tidal port having a free trade zone. It largely handles petroleum products and fertilisers. Foodgrains, cotton, cement and edible oils are also being handled.
Chennai is one of the oldest ports on the east coast and caters to traffic in iron ore, petroleum products and dry cargo. A new port Ennore was commissioned on February 1, 2001 on the eastern coast, 25 km north of Chennai.
New Mangalore on the west coast was declared a major port in 1974. Facilities have been developed at this port for the export of Kudremukh iron ore. Fertilisers, petroleum products, granite stones and dry cargo are handled at this port.
Mormugao (Goa) enjoys the second position of total traffic tonnage, bulk of which is iron ore of exprot.
Paradip in Orissa mainly handles iron ore, coal and general cargo.
Tuticorin on the east coast was declared a major port in 1974. It handles mainly salt, coal, edible oils, foodgrains, fertilisers, petroleum products and dry cargo.
Visakhapatnam is the deepest landlocked and protected port where an outer harbour has been developed for exporting mainly iron ore to Japan. Crude oil, petroleum products, coal and dry cargo are also handled.
Nhava Sheva is India’s 11th and the biggest ultra modern seaport off Mumbai. This port has latest traffic and cargo handling equipment and most modern operational techniques.
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