As Indian Railway gears up to roll out high-speed passenger train or bullet train in the country, it is set to record its worst performance in three years on accidents.
A total of 99 consequential train accidents took place during April 1, 2016 to February 28, 2017, out of which 64 were due to failure of railway staff. Out of 69, 71, 85 and 78 rail accidents during 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16, respectively, 46, 51, 60 and 54 accidents, respectively were on account of the failure on the part of the railway staff.
The faults of railway staff in such cases include carelessness working, poor maintenance cases, adoption of short-cuts, non-observance of laid down safety rules and procedures. The most serious form of accidents involved in such cases is collision and Signal passing at Danger (SPAD) for which particularly loco-pilots are responsible.
Expressing concern over large number of train accidents, a parliamentary standing committee on railway has advised the Railway Ministry to thoroughly investigate the reasons for the increasing trend of accidents due to failure on the part of railway staff. Interestingly, the Railway Ministry in its reply simply stated that lapses are duly investigated while remaining silent on issue of technological aids for loco pilots.
During 2003-04 to 2015-16, second highest reason for consequential accidents and casualties was derailment. Out of total 239 rail accidents occurred during 2003-04, 202 accidents (around 85 percent) were due to derailment. During 2015-16, out of total 78 rail accidents, 65 accidents (around 84 percent) were due to derailment.
"The situation does not seem to have improved during 2016-17, where already one devastating major incident of the derailment of Indore-Patna Express with casualties running into 149 deaths and injuries to more than 180 people has already occurred. As submitted one of the reasons for derailment is defect in the track or rolling stock.
looking at the huge number of rail accidents due to lapse of the railway staff, the Committee derive that the Ministry have failed to assess the root cause of continuous and possibly repeated lapses by railway staff and therefore have failed completely to curb such accidents. They, therefore, urge the Ministry to deliberate on the issue with various Railway Associations and railway staff, to check the faults of the railway staff and take the required corrective measures," the committee headed TMC MP Sudip Bandhyopadhyay said in its report.
The Committee report further stated that in the instant case there seems to be total failure in regard to maintaining the safety standards of their tracks. Ideally, out of the total track length of 1,14,907 kms, 4,500 kms should be renewed annually, however, out of 5,000 kms of track length due for renewal as currently, only 2,700 kms of track length were targeted to be renewed. It is evident 43 that the targets kept for track renewals are not commensurate with the actual requirement on ground.
According to another report, Unmanned level Crossings (UMlCs) continue to be the biggest cause of maximum casualties in rail accidents. There are still 11,440 UMlCs in IR network. During 2014-15, out of 135 train accidents, 50 accidents (around 40 per cent) were at UMlCs. The trend continued during 2015-16 as well with 29 out of 107 (around 28%) accidents being attributed to unmanned level crossings. Further, the Committee are dissatisfied to note that against the targets to eliminate 720, 2,065, 1,735 and 1,352 unmanned level crossings during 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 actual achievement stood at 1234, 1258, 1163 and 1,102 respectively.
Further, to their dismay, they find that there were underutilisation of funds during all these years. The funds were utilised to the extent of 65%, 80% and 79% of the allocation during 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 respectively. The Committee fail to understand the reason(s) for keeping lower targets for elimination of UMlCs for the year 2014-15 and 2015-16 at 730 and 820 respectively, i.e., a reduction in physical targets by nearly 50 per cent as compared to previous years. The Committee take a very serious view of this lackadaisical attitude of the Ministry in dealing with elimination of UMlCs and recommend the Ministry to act proactively and take all possible measures to ensure that financial and physical targets are optimally achieved.