<पी शैली="पाठ-संरेखण: औचित्य सिद्ध करें;">India, the country with the fastest growing economy in the world, is definitely aiming to overtake China in the coming few years, but India will have to face challenges on many fronts to overtake China and become the biggest part of global growth. Will have to.
At present many companies of the world are turning towards India to reduce their dependence on China. But India still has a long way to go to become the next China.
At present, it is most important for India to work on its infrastructure and improve it. India should currently work on improving the high speed rail network for fast connectivity.
How far behind China is India in terms of rail network?
Understand with an example how much India is lagging behind China in terms of fast connectivity – Chennai and Bengaluru are two important cities of India in terms of economic activity. There is a distance of 177 miles between these two cities.
If a person has to go from Chennai to Bangalore then it takes four hours and 20 minutes to travel by train. In exactly the same time a person can travel from Beijing to Shanghai by high-speed train in China. Whose distance is 665 miles, which is three times the distance from Chennai and Bangalore.
Understand the difference between the rail networks of the two countries
The world of railways has taken China to the pinnacle. According to a report by Economic Times, high-speed trains were first started in China in the year 2008 and today after 15 years, this country has a 2,6000 km long high-speed rail network.
In the year 1990, the speed of trains in China was only 35-40 kilometers per hour. This rapid development in China’s railways is the result of investment in the last 25 years.
Talking about India, the first bullet train project is being built in this country now i.e. in the year 2023 between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. It is expected that this project will start by the year 2026 and by then China’s high speed rail network will reach 30,000 miles.
Highest speed of any train in India
At present, the name of the fastest running train in our country is Vande Bharat and its speed is 80 miles per hour. However, this train is rarely able to run on the track at full speed.
Why is train connectivity necessary to compete with China?
Indian Railways is an integral part of the life of every common person. Thousands of trains are operated every day in India. Whereas in a Bloomberg report, citing a research by Lin Tian of INSTEAD in Singapore and Yue Yu of University of Toronto, it has been said that the speed of the train is closely related to exports.
If understood in simple language, better rail network of any country increases the ease of carrying goods from one place to another in that country and this helps in increasing exports.
Due to sluggish and slow speed of railway network in India, exports are also less. For example, Bengaluru city of India is the hub of software outsourcing. But this hub could be built because it does not require any kind of road or ports. But if India has to become a hub for export of goods, then this country will need better connectivity.
Currently 34 Vande Bharat Express are running in India. Its speed is 180 km but the Railway Board has given it permission to run at a speed of only 160 km. Despite this, in view of the poor condition of the tracks in many states, the speed is driven slower than 160.
How did China’s rail network become so strong?
Similar to the problems that Indian Railways faces at present, in China too there was a lot of pressure from passengers on the already built railway lines and there was a need to develop trains and tracks as per the new technology.
Keeping these needs in mind, this country started building a high speed rail network. This is the reason why China indiscriminately constructed a ‘high speed rail network’ of about 20,000 kilometers. The World Bank also invested money in this project.
China started building most of its tracks in central and eastern China. But lines were also laid at many places where there was less population or the place was at a distance of 100 kilometers from the populated area. At that time it was expected that new settlements would be built wherever the train went.
Know the status of trains in India
Two major train accidents occurred on 15 November. Yesterday, fire broke out in Vaishali Express number 12554 going from Delhi to Saharsa. 19 passengers were injured in this incident. Earlier, there was a fire in the Etawah train.
Apart from this, two major train accidents occurred within a week in the last month i.e. October. On Sunday, October 29, two passenger trains collided in Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh and in this accident, 14 people lost their lives, while 50 passengers were injured. Just two days after this accident, i.e. on 31st October, a major train accident took place in Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand. 9 people have been injured in this accident while 2 people have died.
The cause of these accidents was said to be human error. But this is not the first time that such major railway accidents have happened in India. The history of railway accidents in this country is quite old. In the year 1999, 285 people died in the collision of two trains in West Bengal. In the year 2010 also, 145 people died in the same state, when a passenger train derailed and collided with a goods train.
How many train accidents have occurred in the last decade
According to government figures, from 2014 till now i.e. till 2023, there have been 10 train accidents in the Railways in which about 600 people died. So more than 1300 people have also been injured.
Out of these 10 railway accidents, 3 year 2023 Happened in me only. In the month of June this year, a terrible train accident took place in Balasore, Odisha, which was the worst train accident in the last 15 years. In which 291 people lost their lives and more than 1000 people were injured.
In August 2017, Kalinga Utkal Express accident took place in Muzaffarnagar, UP. 23 people lost their lives in this accident. In November 2016, Indore Patna Express met with an accident near Kanpur. In which more than 150 people died.
Janata Express derailed in March 2015. 34 people died in this accident. How can anyone forget the year 2012? According to a BBC report, 14 railway accidents took place this year. In which many people lost their lives.
In the month of July 2010, Uttar Banga Express was the victim of an accident in West Bengal and in the month of September of the same year, there was an accident of Gwalior Intercity Express in Madhya Pradesh, which also took the lives of many people.