Elephants continue to be mowed down by speeding trains all over the country. Either there is complete lack of coordination between forest officials and the railways or that precautionary measures are being simply ignored
Indian Railways, once the nation’s pride, has degenerated to a level where one can hardly think of it without experiencing a gnawing feeling of shame and anger. Safety standards have fallen. Maintenance is dismal. Standards of courtesy and service are awful. Corruption has assumed gargantuan proportions, leading to the exit of a Minister in charge of it under less than edifying circumstances and a situation in which it could not for some time find an untainted incumbent for the post of the Chairman, Railway Board.
It is hardly surprising that wallowing in its malodorous mess, the railways will have neither the time nor the inclination to think of the safety and well-being of one of India’s finest and most majestic animals, the elephant. Yet another instance of its apathy is provided by the accident in which the Jaipur-Guwahati Kabiguru Express ploughed into a herd of 40 elephants in West Bengal’s northern district of Jalpaiguri on Wednesday evening, killing, according to a West Bengal Forest Department official, at least five elephants, and a calf, on the spot. Another estimate puts the number of deaths at 10, besides as many seriously injured.
The actual figure may be known in a couple of days as some of the injured elephants may die in forested areas. But it is a national shame and tragedy even if the total is no more than 10. The stretch of railway line between Siliguri and Alipurduar stations is well-known both for elephant paths going across railway lines and accidents leading to elephant fatalities. Speeding trains killed as many as six elephants in the area between January 1 and March 5 this year. Seven elephants were killed in a train accident in Jalapaiguri district on December 29, 2012. The total number of deaths is shocking. West Bengal's Forests Minister, Mr Hiten Burman, told the State legislative Assembly on June 21, 2012, that of the 63 elephants that died in the State between January 2010-2012, 49 and 14 died in North and South Bengal respectively. Of the 49 deaths in North Bengal, 22 were from railway accidents, while accidents claimed seven of the 14 fatalities in South Bengal.
Animesh Basu, a wildlife activist and coordinator of the Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation, spoke for all elephant-lovers when he said, referring to Wednesday evening’s accident, “It is an irony that elephants are being killed by speeding trains in north Bengal on regular intervals, even though it has been declared as the heritage animal in India and an elephant cub is the mascot of Indian Railways.” West Bengal, however, accounts for a part of elephant deaths from accidents. Constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Elephant Task Force submitted its report, ‘Gajah: Securing the Future for Elephants in India on August 31, 2010’. According to the report, train accidents had killed 39 elephants in Assam, 24 in West Bengal, 21 in Uttarakhand, 15 in Jharkhand, four in Uttar Pradesh, five in Tamil Nadu, three in Odisha and two in Kerala, between 1987 and 2007.
The report recommended several steps to prevent road and rail accidents. Besides site-specific short and long-term mitigation measures, these included the announcement of the principles of forest area, railway track and highway management, the grant of mining licences and rules governing the drawing and maintenance of power cables through forest areas. On the basis of the report, the Centre declared the elephant as the National Heritage Animal.
Implementation, however, has been half-hearted, with the railways being particularly insensitive to the task of protecting elephant corridors cutting across tracks. After the accident in Jalpaiguri, Mr Hiten Burman, said that the railways had repeatedly ignored requests from his department to reduce the speed of the trains in areas where there were elephant crossings.
He was right in emphasising the need for reducing speed. Animal Equality, an animal rights organisation in Britain, has outlined a number of steps for protecting elephants in letters to the Ministers for Railways and Environment and Forests respectively. The recommendations include equipping trains with automatic speed governors which would be activated once trains enter forests where the maximum speed should be 20-25 kmph on even tracks and 40-45 kmph on steep tracts.
The Kabiguru Express was travelling at a speed of 80 kmph when it hit the herd. Even worse was the case of Coromondal Express which killed five elephants and a calf while travelling from Howrah to Chennai on December 30, 2011. It was, according to Mr Bijoy Kumar Hota, Khallikote forest range officer, travelling at a speed of between 115 to 120 kilometres per hour considering the impact, which scattered the bodies of the elephants hit here and there around the track, and pieces of carcasses over a distance of half a kilometre!
What is particularly shocking is that the accident on December 30 occurred in an area where, as in Jalpaiguri district, elephants cross the railway line regularly. There were as many as 10 signboards, warning that it was an ‘elephant crossing zone’ between Rambha and Huma stations where the accident occurred. As in several other cases, the railways and the Odisha Forest Department traded allegations as to who was to blame, with the latter claiming that the railways had been informed in time and the elephants could have been saved had the train driver been warned on the wireless, and the former claiming that the forest department’s information came at the time of the accident, which left no scope for a message to be sent. Even if there was a delay, the fact that the Cormondal Express was travelling at a very high speed through a highly sensitive area, indicated an utterly cavalier attitude toward elephants.
There has clearly to be a change in the mindset of the railways, and the recommendations regarding a speed limit should be promptly implemented, as should be some of the other suggestions like installing in trains scintillating head lamps with halogen/lED bulbs which would help to illuminate much longer stretches of tracks, fitting them with water cannons to remove animals refusing to budge from tracks, and installing in them radar sensors to detect animals on tracks, determine the train’s distance from these, and act as instant auto-brakes for preventing collisions. All this will cost money. But India’s National Heritage Animal merits the expenditure.