Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge has asked Zonal Railways to adopt a policy of ‘Zero Tolerance for Accidents’. The Minister has written a letter to heads of Zonal Railways pointing out that the DRMs at the divisional level and GMs at the Zonal level shall be responsible for ensuring train safety in their respective areas.
“Special emphasis must be laid on effective implementation inspection at every level, including night inspections. Field inspection of vulnerable places like parcel, luggage offices must be undertaken with a view to minimise/ eliminate hazards of fire,” Kharge wrote to General Managers.
He has suggested monitoring and counselling of loco pilots and assistant loco pilots. “Utmost attention should be paid to their personal issues inbcluding rest, particularly home rest,” Kharge wrote.
He has asked for continuous monitoring of the process of filling up vacancies in the safety category posts. “Most of fatalities occur in the accident at Unmanned level Crossings. Efforts are on to eliminate all the unamanned level crossings in the next few years. A strict time frame is to be followed and monitored by all Zonal Railways,” Kharge said.
Maintaining that number of accident per million train kilometres has reduced from 0.44 in 2003-04 to 0.13 in 2012-13, the minister said the policy of ‘Zero Tolerance to Accidents’ could be achieved through a combination of improved technological aids and high quality training to improve skills of the employees.