Reliant on British-era infrastructure, the Indian Railways is strained beyond capacity

In March 2025, the Ministry of Railways had stated that most of its divisions maintain “over 90% punctuality”. Behind the headline figure lies the everyday reality of passengers, with the punctuality index actually declining. Reliance on diesel locomotives, signal failures and congestion lead to most delays, data show and experts say.

In 2023-'24, Indian Railways carried 6.9 billion passengers overall, or an average daily footfall of about 19 million, across its 69,000-kilometre network.

Since April 2023, diesel locomotives have led to a “punctuality loss” in over 4,400 cases, or an average of five each day, data from the Railway Board show. In cases of diesel engine failure, the train halts at the point of failure – sometimes on a bridge or mid-section, blocking the entire line.

“The lack of alternate traction power means the train cannot move until a relief engine is brought in,” Sushil Luthra, former chief administrative officer at Indian Railways and editor of Rail Business Magazine, says. “In contrast, trains like Vande Bharat use distributed power across multiple coaches, so even if one unit fails, others can keep the train moving.”

This is alongside other major lapses – signal failures, track damage, congestion, and rolling stock issues – where no recent data are available on the delays they caused.

In 2019, Piyush Goyal, who was then railway minister, in a Lok Sabha reply attributed punctuality loss to internal factors including “equipment failures related to locomotives, Over-Head Electrical cables, track, signals, coaches and wagons; and saturated line capacity”.

The Punctuality Index for the railways has declined, as per latest data – from 94.17 in 2020 to 73.62 in 2023. The index considers a train punctual if it arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled time – a far more lenient standard than Germany's 5 minutes, Britain's 10 minutes, or Japan's few seconds.

“Indian Railways is still relying on British-era infrastructure, and not enough new track capacity has been added,” Verma said. “For the past 15 years, the Railways has acknowledged network congestion, but the situation remains largely the same today.”

Over 80% of India's busiest rail routes – the High-Density Network connecting major cities – are running over capacity. At least 22% are so congested that their capacity utilisation exceeds 150%, as per the National Rail Plan. Nearly half of the Highly Utilised Network routes are also strained beyond capacity.

Overall, while 45% of the entire network remains underutilised at below 70% capacity, 1% of the network is burdened with more than 150% utilisation.

Former director of IIM Bangalore G Raghuram says that in congestion at major junctions like the Bengaluru City Railway Station, “covering the last 30 km may even take up to two hours”.

The number of electric locomotives has increased 26% in two years to 2023-'24, but the number of diesel locomotives fell 7%.

Railway ministry data show that since 2023-'24, over 4,400 cases of punctuality loss were recorded due to diesel locomotive failures.

By October 2025, broad gauge electrification cover grew to 99.1%, with complete electrification in every Indian state except for Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa and Assam.

During 2023-'24, the latest year for which data are available, the Railways covered over 800 million train kilometres on passenger trains, and 513 million train kilometres on freight trains. Yet, of this, 15% and 20%, respectively, was on diesel locomotives.

In a 2024 performance audit, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India noted that the increase in electrification was not accompanied by a proportionate decrease in diesel consumption “mainly due to non-completion of electrification project on end to end route, missing links and non-availability of traction change facility at interchange points etc.”

The process of replacing diesel locomotives with electric has been slow, noted Alok Verma, a retired Indian Railway Service of Engineers officer. This shows a “lack of long-term planning in implementing the project”, he added, explaining that closing or replacing diesel sheds, repair workshops and production units suddenly is not feasible.

“Diesel locomotives have a codal life of around 35 years, and although fresh production largely stopped in 2016-'17 due to rapid electrification, a limited number are still being produced,” Luthra added. “While the diesel fleet is gradually being phased out, the Ministry of Railways has decided to retain about 2,500 diesel locos as a strategic reserve for emergencies, power outages, and defense needs. Electric loco production has since accelerated, adding around 1,600 units last year. Yet, some diesel haulage (known as diesel under the wire) under electrified routes will continue, reflecting a transitional but sub-optimal phase in India's rail electrification drive.”

Signalling lapses are also a major cause of delays and accidents. The Ministry of Railways warned in September 2025 that “repeated signal failures” pose a “serious threat to the safety and reliability”. In a recent inquiry, the Commission of Railway Safety also flagged frequent signalling failures in automatic systems.

Since 2020-'21, Railways recorded 187 cases of Signal Passed At Danger, where a train passes a red signal due to equipment failure or human error.

As of April 2025, around 80,000 km tracks had speed potential of 110 kmph and above and 23,000 km tracks had speed potential of 130 kmph.

“India's passenger trains rarely achieve an average speed above 90 kmph, with most operating between 55-70 kmph despite maximum speeds of 130-160 kmph on some sections,” Raghuram says. “Increasing the average speed of trains would have more benefits than focusing only on raising maximum speed. To increase average speed, it requires minimising halts, reconfiguring station layouts to allow mainline overtakes, grade separation at major junctions, and targeted removal of speed restrictions.”

The average speed of Mail or Express trains have increased from 50.3 kmph in 2017 to 51.1 kmph in 2023, and the speed of Goods trains has improved by 0.3 km per hour, the Ministry of Railway told the Rajya Sabha in December 2023.

This comes despite Mission Raftaar, launched by Indian Railways in 2017 to double freight train speeds from 25 kmph to 50 kmph and increase Mail and Express train speeds from 50 kmph to 75 kmph by the end of 2022.

A 2020 CAG audit noted that Permanent Speed Restrictions are a major bottleneck in achieving the objectives of the Mission Raftaar and result in financial losses. Permanent speed restrictions are based on the conditions of the track. The audit found Western Railway had the most restrictions at 685, while Southern Railway had the fewest at 56.

In June 2025, the government said 31,000 km of new tracks had been laid and 45,000 km renewed since 2014. In August, the parliamentary standing committee on railways flagged a disparity between fund utilisation for doubling of tracks and the physical progress, noting that “doubling is a long-term asset essential for improving train speeds and serving as a significant revenue multiplier”.

The railway network is so congested that there is not enough time to shut down tracks for essential maintenance and inspections, pointed out Verma. “This creates a cycle of inadequate maintenance and asset failures. Without timely maintenance and inspections, you see more accidents, loss of passenger trust, and an unreliable transport system.”

A 2022 CAG audit on Indian Railways derailments found a 57% shortfall in deploying advanced sleepers – rectangular supports for rails – during planned track renewals since 2019. Between 2017 and 2021, the audit found that over half of the track-recording car inspections were missed and track maintenance machines remained idle 16% of days due to poor planning.

The 2021 CAG audit, the most detailed on asset failures, reported a 400% surge in locomotive failures over four years, hitting 24,147 in 2018. During the same period, Overhead Equipment failures jumped sevenfold to 2,759.

The report said maintenance practices are “directly linked” to asset failures, which contributed to an average 22.2% of overall punctuality loss in 2018. These included rail, weld, and signal failures. It also noted that deep screening work, a railway track maintenance process, was overdue up to 20 years.

Indian Railways' spending on safety has seen a rise in recent years. In 2025, it allocated Rs 1.2 lakh crore to safety works. Luthra said accidents persist despite higher capital spending due to lack of proper staff training, especially in new technologies like electronic signalling and interlocking, and an inefficient administrative setup. “Many Railway Standard Operating Procedures still date back to the British era.”

IndiaSpend wrote to the Ministry of Railway for comments on the Indian Railway's punctuality, safety measures, and passenger experience. This story will be updated when we receive a response.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

Source: Scroll
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