konkan railway project case study

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Evaluating the impact of infrastructure development: case study of the Konkan Railway in India

3ie impact evaluation report 114, 2020.

Sreeja Jaiswal, Gunther Bensch, Aniket Navalkar, T Jayaraman, Kamal Murari and Unmesh Patnaik

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Authors of this impact evaluation report present empirical evidence on the long-term socioeconomic and environmental impact of the Konkan Railways project, a large-scale infrastructure project in India, on the local ecosystem of the Konkan region.

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• DOI : 10.23846/DPW1IE114

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I had to think out of the box to succeed in building the konkan railway project in record time: 'metro man' e sreedharan, ..and that got me the delhi metro.

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Sreedharan’s first brush with fame was repairing the Pamban bridge in 1963, parts of which had been washed away in a cyclone. The railways estimated it would take six months to repair the sole link between mainland India and Rameshwaram. Sreedharan did it in just 46 days. A legend was born. But significant as it was, even this wasn’t a turning point in his life. “I had a very ordinary, uneventful career in the Indian Railways from December 1954 to June 1990. No doubt, restoration of the Pamban bridge gave me an excellent opportunity to demonstrate my technical and organisational competence. But it wasn’t a turning point in my career.”

What was it then? Sreedharan says it was a stirring article in Reader’s Digest, which highlighted the need for “out-of-the-box” thinking when faced with a major challenge. He was then Member (Engineering) on the Railway Board in 1990. It so happened that the senior railway engineer in what seemed like the last phase of his career was facing what appeared to be an insurmountable challenge. Railways minister George Fernandes had mentioned his dream project, a Mumbai to Mangalore railway line that would complete India’s last great missing rail link.

The trouble was it would have to pass through some of the toughest terrain in India, the rugged Western Ghats, reason why the Indian railways had never even surveyed the route for such a line. It was deemed an impossible project. The 738 km-long railway line would need 93 tunnels which would have to bore through not only the hard volcanic rock of the Ghats but also soft clay and even sand. It would need 157 major bridges and 6,000 minor ones. Project costs were estimated at what was then a staggering Rs 3,000 crore.

“The annual budget outlay for new railway lines at the time was hardly Rs 600 crore and about 20 rail lines were already in progress. With trickling funds, a conventional approach for the Konkan project would have taken at least 30 years for completion,” says Sreedharan.

This is where Sreedharan went for an out-of-the-box approach. He suggested the creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) with the Railways and the four beneficiary states, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala, as equity holders. These states would contribute a third of the project costs. The balance funding required would be raised from the market, following a build, operate and transfer (BOT) principle. Using this novel concept, the project could be completed in seven years, Sreedharan estimated. Fernandes immediately accepted the idea. When Sreedharan retired on June 1990, the minister entrusted him with the project. Sreedharan would be chairman & managing director of the Konkan Railway Corporation. The project was a resounding success and, as Sreedharan predicted, was completed in seven years.

The reputation he garnered from the Konkan Railway brought Sreedharan to the Delhi Metro. In 1995, the government of India and government of Delhi set up an SPV, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). The Konkan Railway veteran was appointed CMD and given sweeping autonom­ous powers to execute the project, from hiring personnel to deciding on engineering tenders. The flawless execution of the Delhi Metro triggered India’s metro revolution.

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Evaluating the impact of infrastructure development: case study of the Konkan Railway in India

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Impact Evaluation Report 114

Sreeja Jaiswal

Operational since 1998, the Konkan Railway is one of the biggest railway construction endeavour in independent India, traversing over 760 km along the Konkan region of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka – a hitherto backward region, characterized by out-migration for employment. The region is also known to be ecologically sensitive, which is why the railway was frequently contested for its potential impacts on the local ecosystem. We employ a theory-based evaluation approach to provide empirical evidence and explore causal mechanisms of the socio-economic and environmental impacts of the Konkan Railway. We find that the Konkan Railway had a positive effect on population sizes, female to male sex ratio and a negative effect on male main workers leading to the plausible conclusion that the railway access has reinforced the pre-existing pattern of high levels of male migration. We also find an increase in crude workforce participation rate driven by an increase in marginal workers and other workers. However, the results are insignificant for cultivators and agricultural labour. These results led us to conclude that the railway has encouraged diversification into non-agricultural economic activities and also of workplaces through easier access to employment opportunities via daily rural-urban commutes and seasonal migration. We only find insignificant changes in forest cover and water bodies in close proximity to the railway stations. The analysis, hence, could not substantiate the concerns raised during the time of the construction of the Railway regarding environmental degradation, at least not on a large scale. The findings encourage policymakers to take into consideration the risk and uncertainty which characterize the attainment or non-attainmet of desired benefits and expected outcomes. and the impact of transport infrastructure on migration, geographic labour mobility and labour market outcomes in sending and receiving regions.

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A writ petition was filed in the Bombay High Court by a Society asking the Court to compel the Railway Corporation to procure environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forest under the EPA, 1986 for the part of alignment passing through Goa. The petitioner claimed that the proposed alignment is wholly destructive of the environment and the ecosystem and violates Art. 21 of the Constitution. The grievance of the petitioners was that the proposed alignment was planned and undertaken without an adequate Environment Impact Assessment and Environment Management Plan. The petitioner also claimed that the Corporation had violated the the coastal regulation zone CRZ notification. According to the petitioner, although the ecological damage due to the proposed project will not be immediately visible, the damage will be gradual and will lead to the deterioration of the land quality effecting a large number of people. In particular the project would have a disastrous consequence on the low lying Khazan paddy fields. The Khazan fields lie below the sea level and have a unique natural biological eco-system of mangroves and fish life, and are among the most fertile nurseries of fish life. The Court after review the argument and the facts presented before it, refused to exercise its writ jurisdiction over a matter of national importance and significance. The extent of damage is negligible and public project of this kind will fulfil the long standing aspirations of the people on the west coast. According to the Court "no development is possible without some adverse effect on the ecology and environment." Further the Court interpreted the meaning of Central Government in the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 in an extended way: since the project is approved by the Central Government and the Railway Ministry is carrying out the project, the Corporation can use forest land for non-forest purpose. But Central Government as mentioned in Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 means the Ministry of Environment & Forest and not any other Ministry. The Court also held out that the project cannot be challenged on the ground that it violated the provisions of the EPA. The reason being that Section 11 of the Railway Act, 1989 allows the Railway Administration to construct over any lands, hill, valley stream etc. According to the Court the wide ambit of the provision of Section 11 and the non obstante clause makes it extremely clear that the provisions of the environment acts do not bind the construction or maintenance of a railway line.

Metro rail is the future, Konkan Rly will venture into it in big way: CMD

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Land use, forest cover and migration: Study analyses the effects of the Konkan Railways

Between 1991 and 2014, agricultural land saw the sharpest decline while surprisingly, forest cover and water bodies were relatively unchanged..

A new study evaluating the impacts of the 740-kilometre long Konkan Railway line has thrown up some surprising results related to the impact on forests. Launched in 1993, the railway line’s route was contentious because it cut through wetlands, forest and other environmentally sensitive areas. But according to the study, forest cover has remained relatively unchanged in the decades since the line came up.

Forest cover is a narrow indicator of an ecosystem’s health. However, the study is among the first to look at the long-term land use change resulting from the entire breadth of the Konkan Railway, including changes to forest cover.

“One of the major motivations to conduct this study was to look how the railway line changed the economy and land use cover in the vicinity of the project. Some reports have said developmental activity in the Western Ghats can disturb the ecology of the region, but at the same time, there’s an urgent need for sustainable development,” Aniket Navalkar, a researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and lead author of the study, told Mongabay-India . “Our study offers insights into how land use is affected by linear transport infrastructure like railway over a time-period, and how environmental measures can help compensate for initial losses in forest cover.”

The Konkan Railway stretches across Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. In 1992, the Goa Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, petitioned against the railway line’s alignment through Goa, arguing it would destroy the state’s unique khazan lands – a type of coastal wetland used for agriculture, aquaculture and salt panning. The Bombay High Court dismissed the petition , saying environmental laws couldn’t bind the construction of the railway line. The Railway now ferries an average of 27 million passengers a year and is considered a lifeline for the southern west coast.

Land use changes

The study examines the land use change that occurred within up to 30 kilometres of the railway line, focussing on four types of land – agricultural, forest cover, water bodies and open spaces and built up land. Open spaces include dry salt flats, beaches, bare exposed rock, strip mines, quarries, gravel pits, and mixed barren land. Built up spaces include residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and mixed urban land. Water bodies included streams and canals, lakes, reservoirs, bays and estuaries.

The construction of railways is exempt from the environmental clearance process, which means that unlike most large development projects, railway corporations don’t need to conduct Environmental Impact Assessments before construction begins. Under the Forest (Conservation) Act, project developers are obligated to carry out compensatory afforestation for trees felled due to the project. The exemption from the environment clearance process, however, means that information about the long-term impacts of railway projects on the environment and land-use is not well studied or known.

The researchers used satellite data and a “difference-in-difference” (DID) analysis to examine land use change in 59,444 square kilometres along the railway line. A DID analysis provides a comparison between areas that received an intervention and those that didn’t, across the long term.

Between 1991 and 2014 – the study’s assessment years – agricultural land saw the sharpest decline of 21.4 percentage points compared to the comparison region at 20 kilometers from the railway line, and 22.9 percentage points at 30 kilometres from the railway line, in 2008.

Surprisingly, forest cover and water bodies remain relatively unchanged across the study area. To compensate for forest loss during the construction phase of the railway line, the Konkan Railway Corporation Limited planted lakhs of plants and saplings of species like bougainvillaea, acacia, catechu, teak, badam, cashew and gulmohar, among others, which may explain why forest cover was not adversely affected.

“Even though initial disturbances happen as a result of engineering interventions, regeneration is possible through afforestation and environmental management as was carried out by the KRCL [Konkan Railway Corporation Limited]. This finding is important with regard to railways’ role in sustainable development in developing regions,” the study states.

“What needs to be studied further is whether ecosystems have been affected by the railway line. That is something we have not been able to determine through our study,” Navalkar told Mongabay-India .

According to BK Singh, former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in Karnataka, the replacement of natural forest cover with plantations is likely to have impacts on biodiversity. “There are some 300 odd species in those areas. What was lost was prime, natural forests and the plantations cannot replace that richness in biodiversity. Rivers like the Payaswini have become seasonal and dry up sooner because of forest loss,” he said.

A related study on the socio-economic impacts of the Konkan Railway line suggests it has facilitated the out-migration of male family members for better economic opportunities. Between 1991 and 2014, agricultural land underwent the most dramatic change, reducing by a significant proportion due to the railway line. The railway line also led to an increase in built up area and open spaces. “The plausible explanation for the same may be urbanisation along the Konkan Railway line, occupational shifts, and a decline in agricultural labour,” says the study.

The study also found that the railway line aided labour migration to more prosperous regions, and that in doing so “encouraged diversification of economic activities and of workplaces by making it easier to access employment opportunities via daily commutes between rural and urban areas.”

This article was first published on Mongabay .

• Konkan Railways
• Forest Cover
• Agriculture