Railway Minister Piyush Goel has said the ‘decadal negligence’ of the railways during the decade long Congress- led United Progressive Alliance Government compromised on the rail safety and the NDA Government has accelerated the maintenance and upgrading of the rail network across the country during the last four years of the BJP led NDA Government at the Center. The minister claimed that the transformational change in the railways would be visible to the people in 2018. Addressing the media through video conferencing on the completion of the four years of the NDA government, rail minister said in 2013-14, the last year of the UPA regime, the annual track renewal was only 2,900 km while the same was 4,400 km during the last fiscal 2017-18.
Goel said during the last four years the NDA Government has changed the mindset of the railway management where special emphasis was laid on safety which resulted in 62 percent drop in rail accidents. “The biggest challenge before us was to fill the backlog in safety system of the railway and we met it by focussing on safety, outcome oriented action and speed, skill and scale’’, said Goel. The minister said “we plan to bring the positive change for the common rail passenger through the application of technology like installing the CCTV camera at each railway station and each coach of the train’’.
“The last fiscal 2017-18 was the best year for the railway safety as there were less than 100 rail accidents. During the last four years as 5,469 unmanned level crossings were abolished and by 2020 all level crossings on broad gauze rail tracks would be abolished’’, said the minister.
“We have maximised the use of the railway rakes by extending the route as many trains used to run for 8 hours in a day. The Gatiman express which used to run between Delhi- Agra, was extended to Gwalior and later to Jhansi, thus linking the fast train with the Bundelkhand region’’, said Piyush goel.
Piyush Goel however admitted the slowing down of the speed of train in North and east India due to the track renewal, strengthening of the infrastructure. “There was very little capital expenditure on rail safety during the UPA rule yet the number of trains has doubled and the rail network is handling trains which are 150 percent of its installed capacity. The problem of late running of trains would be addressed as soon as the track renewal work is completed’’, said the rail minister.