Regular rail users, common people and elite group are yet to come out of the trauma from the incident of the Puri-Ahmadabad Express that rolled without engine for more than 11 km and again made a backward journey to finally stop.
But the rail users and the common people are not ready to take the matter easy. There is no dearth of such incidents in railways where manmade mistakes have caused fatal accidents and led to huge losses of life.
“All these happen because the railway at the first phase suspends the erring staff and then revokes the suspension to enable them to resume duties. Since it has become a regular practice, the erring staffers just take it casually,” opined regular rail user Saroj Kumar Samantray.
“Suspension is not a punishment in our country. Hence, suspending a few staffers for their gross negligence is not seen appropriate and that rather encourages other staff to do similar mistakes in future since suspension and reinstatement are a routine process,” added Samantray.
“The rail users and even the intelligentsia mass demand stringent action against such staff who do nothing but play with life and property of human beings and thereby bring a very bad name for the organisation.
These staffers must be shown the door and good and efficient people be put in place,” suggested eminent economist and former Professor of GM University Dr Dillip Panda. The current incident is a system failure, Dr Panda said further. Sanjukta Mohanty, who frequently travels to different places of the country by train, said that the current incident is surely due to individual lapses.
But if the railway authorities will make them go scot free, it will be an institutional lapse, said Mohanty, who is a senior advocate and social activist.