A Cuttack-based social activist and advocate of the Odisha High Court on Monday issued a legal notice to the Indian Railways asking it to properly secure and deploy guards at all the unmanned level-crossings in the State within two months. The lawyer has threatened that if his petition is not addressed to within the stipulated period, he would have no option left but to initiate legal proceedings against the Railways.
Obtaining data through the Right to Information Act, Nishikant Mishra said there are as many as 554 unmanned level-crossings in the State as in August 2014. “During last ten years, 59 train accidents have taken place in the State due to unmanned level-crossings in which 67 persons have died and 69 are injured,” Mishra said quoting data provided by the Railways.
He said repeated directions from the Supreme Court and the Odisha High Court to convert unmanned level-crossings to manned ones have gone unrequited by the Railway authorities, thereby causing heavy human and property loss due to accidents. At least 14 persons died at an unmanned level crossing in Sambalpur in August 2013 in which the Railways was asked by the High Court to pay damages to next of kin of the victims, and little has been done since then to make them secure.