Spurred into action by the tragic Elphinstone rail foot overbridge (FOB) stampede, in which the death toll reached 23, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday announced a slew of measures to improve the national public transporter’s infrastructure by “cutting red tape and working on shorter deadlines.”
Construction of FOBs will be given top priority without budgetary constraints. For the next 18 months the General Managers (GMs) will have the powers to take financial decisions on issues related to Railways and passengers’ safety; 200 officers will be relocated from the headquarters as field staff to strengthen ground operations and project implementation and 40 rail yards across India, including eight yards in Mumbai region, will be upgraded with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore.
In a high-level review meeting convened in Mumbai with top Railway officials from Delhi, including chairman Railway Board Ashwani lohani, attending it, Goyal also directed the Railway top brass to identify critical locations prone to similar tragedies and carry out a safety audit within a week to look at structural stability of the rail infrastructure.
The officials have been given a week to resolve any pending issues with other Government agencies that have led to projects getting stalled and problems getting escalated.
“Projects cannot be kept perpetually hanging due to differences between Government departments,” Goyal directed.
The meeting decided that FOBs, platforms and pathways at the end of platforms will be treated as safety mechanisms and given highest priority with no restriction on budget. At present, only the first FOB at a station is considered as essential and the subsequent one a passenger amenity.
A decision has been taken that for next 18 months, the Zonal GMs have been delegated powers without limit for safety-related issues.
They will intimate the Financial Commissioner (FC) within a week of sanction for provision and the latter has to confirm it within 15 days. In case of disagreement, the matter will be brought up to the Railway Board for final decision within the same stipulated time-frame of 15 days.
Besides, additional escalators sanctioned at stations of the Mumbai suburban system having high footfall will be finalised within 15 days.
A similar exercise will be carried out for all high-use stations all over India. Besides, within the next 15 months, CCTV cameras will be installed in all suburban trains in Mumbai with a monitoring mechanism.
This will be done across India as well.
“The Minister also issued directions for delegation of financial and administrative powers to field units by October 2017 to reduce red tapism and push development and delivery. These steps will lead to improvement in the functioning, operations and standards of safety in railways,” said a railway spokesperson.
The Minister ordered setting up of multi-disciplinary teams to visit and inspect all Mumbai suburban stations to identify areas of concern.
The teams would identify critical locations prone to similar situations and draw up suitable action plans to tackle them. Goyal said any concessions required to accommodate space constraints at railway platforms would be sorted out immediately.
Sources said during the meeting it surfaced that the Western Railway had carried out a safety audit of all steel structures including FOBs and is reported to have classified the bridge between the Elphinstone Road and Parel stations as safe from the structural point of view.
The Minister also expressed concern as to how the new rail bridge announced in the 2016 Railway Budget remained a non-starter and kept moving within files.
Goyal, who has been given the onus of an image makeover of the Railways after the unceremonious exit of Suresh Prabhu, told the top rail officials to identify critical locations prone to similar tragedies and an immediate safety audit to look at structural stability of the rail infrastructure.