Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal today chaired a high level meeting on Railway safety with the members of Railway Board and Safety Directorate of Railway Board to comprehensively review Safety measures for train operations.
Goyal emphasised on according top priority to safety, he directed to undertake few immediate measures to address the problem of unmanned level crossings and derailments.
Two major causes leading to accidents were identified as – 1) Unmanned level Crossings accounted for 34 per cent of accidents in 2016-17 and 2) Derailments due to defects in tracks.
The special focus of the meeting was to identify measures to reduce accidents due to derailments which have emerged as one of the major causes of train accidents.
Goyal directed the Railway Board to ensure that all unmanned level crossings should be eliminated expeditiously on the entire Indian Railway network in a year’s time from now. The earlier target was to eliminate these in 3 years but by using Transformative mantra of “Speed, Skill and Scale” this target has been expedited to less than 1 year now.
He also directed that the track replacement/renewal should be accorded priority and the tracks (rails) earmarked for use for constructing new lines should be diverted to places/stretches which are prone to accidents and where replacement is due. The procurement of new rails should be expedited on a large scale with a view to complete construction of new lines in time.
He instructed that the manufacturing of conventional ICF design coaches should be stopped forthwith