The latest rail accident that claimed at least 120 lives has put a big question mark over the way the Ministry of Railways treats the recommendations of the committee and suggestions of autonomous bodies auditing the rail safety measures.
In a report submitted to the Government in February, the Centre’s High-level Safety Review Committee under the chairmanship of Dr Anil Kakodkar claimed that that almost 50 per cent of the train accidents is due to derailment combined with human errors. In another report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) too flayed the Ministry of Railways over ill-equipped and ill-planned safety programme of the Indian Railways. If the Kakodkar Committee recommendations are accepted, the total financial implication over the five-year period is likely to be Rs1 lakh crore.
The Kakodkar Committee paints a grim picture of Indian Railways’ performance, mainly due to poor infrastructure, insufficient resources and lack of empowerment at the functional level. It suggests adoption of advanced signalling system for the entire trunk route length of 19,000 km within five years at an estimated cost of Rs20,000 crore.
Kakodkar Committee had made 106 recommendations, covering various aspects viz general safety matters, organisational structure, empowerment at working level and safety related works and issues.
It also advised filling up of vacancies in critical safety categories and manpower planning issues, plugging the shortage of critical safety spares, external interferences - removal of encroachment and possibility of sabotage, upgradation of signaling, telecommunication and train protection system, upgradation of rolling stock, track, bridges, elimination of level crossings, human resource development with emphasis on education and training,
After the submission of the report in July 2016, Ministry claimed that of the 106 recommendations, 68 recommendations have been fully accepted, 19 partially accepted and 19 not accepted by the Ministry of Railways.
The Kakodkar Committee submitted its report to the then Railway Minister in March 2012, but there was no follow-up action thereafter the report was presented to incumbent Minister this year. The Bibek Debroy Committee too had called for adopting the Kakodkar Committee’s recommendations to improve safety.
Of the total of 131 train accidents that occurred in Indian Railways during 2011- 12, 115 (87.78 per cent) were due to human failure. As many 52 (36.69 per cent) took place due to the failure of railway staff; 63 (48.09 per cent) due to the failure of other non-railway staff; 5 (3.81 per cent) due to failure of equipments’ 6 (4.58 per cent) due to Sabotage; 1 (0.76 per cent) due to combination of factors; 3 (2.29 per cent) due to incidental factors; and 1 (0.76 per cent) accident due to unknown reasons.
In December 2015, the CAG slammed railways for the delay in sanctioning and completing repair works of tracks and old bridges, saying it “posed a threat to human lives.” It noted that in 31 out of 102 bridgeworks test checked, railways took on an average 43 months to sanction the bridgeworks after its identification for rehabilitation.
The auditor also found that there was shortfall in achievement of target in nine zonal railways and that there was also under-utilisation of funds to the extent of Rs60.95 crore on an average per year.
The national auditor had also pulled up railways for receiving fake currency notes of Rs92.33 lakh during the last five years while reprimanding the transporter for not adhering to the prescribed rules for dealing with such cases. The CAG, which examined the records for the period from 2010-11 to 2014-15 up to July 2014, cautioned that this led to possibility of re-circulation of fake currency in the open market.
In another report, the CAG found that short circuit, poor maintenance and lack of awareness are major reasons of fire in trains. It also noted that the automatic smoke/fire detection devices in running trains are not properly functional.
The report observed that Corporate Safety Plan (CSP) envisaged bringing down the number of accidents by 80 per cent from 2001-02 to 2013 but number of accidents went up by 160 per cent during the period. The loss of human lives in fire accidents in passenger coaches steeply increased from three in 2001-02 to nine in 2011-12, to 32 in 2012-13 and 35 in 2013-14.