It’s time railways enhanced safety standards
The inquiry that has been ordered into the tragic train accident near Kanpur in the early hours of Sunday, will give us details of what precisely went wrong that led to the derailment of 14 coaches of the Indore-Patna Express. But for now speculation is that the accident occurred due to both over-speeding and ‘rail fracture', which happens when tracks expand during summer and contract during winter. The fact that half the coaches of the train got derailed is a matter of grave concern and points to problems relating to safety standards. There is no doubt that since taking charge, Minister for Railways Suresh Prabhu has been working overtime to revamp the archaic safety regime of Indian Railways, but it's a long exercise that requires both patience and money. Sunday's was the worst train accident in the last six years, and every time an incident of this sort takes place, probes are announced and commitments made to improve the safety features of the railways.
Rarely, if at all, anything significant happens thereafter. According to media reports, some passengers noted with concern that the coaches were ‘rattling' violently and shared their apprehension with railway officials who happened to be in the coaches. Unfortunately, the fears were brushed aside. Had these officials heeded the concern, they could have perhaps informed the train driver and the tragedy could have been averted. It may be a coincidence that the casualties occurred in the compartments manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF). The Indore-Patna Express, like several other trains, uses the ICF coaches while premium trains such as the Rajdhani Express and the Shatabdi Express have the more modern linke Hoffman Busch (lHM) coaches, which have enhanced safety features. While this does not mean that trains that have the more modern coaches do not meet with accidents, the fact cannot be denied that outdated coaches are more susceptible to derailment. Prabhu had in his last Railway Budget speech assured that plans had been drawn to replace the old coaches in all trains and equip them with lHB coaches. If media reports are to be believed, the proposal has been hanging fire because the Railway Board has red-flagged it, saying the manufacturers would not be able to meet the massive numbers required to replace coaches in all the trains. If this is indeed a genuine apprehension, surely the Ministry of Railways could have at least begun the process for the number of trains that the manufacturer could handle.
It's not just dated coaches but also ageing tracks that are a problem. According to some figures, over 50 per cent of train accidents in the last three years have been due to derailment; 29 per cent of these were related to track issues. Accidents arising out of track problems have shot up alarmingly in this fiscal year, to 67 per cent of all train accidents. The tragedy is not so much that railway mandarins have failed to act; it's that they have not acted despite being fully aware of the shortcomings in our safety standards. The Anil Kakodkar panel report, which was submitted to the Union Government in February this year, and which offered a wide array of reform measures to enhance Indian Railways' functioning, including raising safety standards, should at least now be taken seriously.