Scrimping PM Modi, Rail Minister Left Railways Vulnerable To Accidents

The deaths of 10 persons in a collision between the Sealdah-bound Kanchenjunga Express and a goods train raises important questions about railway safety, accountability, policy priorities and more. Are we always learning by accident? This accident in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district has registered the highest death toll since the Balasore accident in Odisha last year. Initial reports point to human error as the cause of the accident.

But even as the final report of the Commissioner of Railway Safety is awaited, conscientious citizens are asking whether the railways has been derailed owing to compromises in safety standards? Other queries follow in rapid succession.

For one, why was the goods train driver allowed to run his train at a speed higher than the prescribed norm? The chairman of the Railway Board has blamed the goods train driver for the accident. But the accident killed him and he cannot say a word in his own defence. Had he been alive, his words would have opened a can of worms.

In fact, some are already crawling out. An injured woman passenger had been made to sign on some white papers which she later learnt contained a complaint against the dead driver of the goods train.

Wonders do not cease here. A railway employee who happens to be the assistant driver of the goods train who has been declared dead by the Railway Board is yet to leave the mortal world and is admitted to a hospital. If he deposes will it not be a case of a dead man walking?

Reverting to the alleged human error which caused the crash, it may be an oversight or some other sort of mistake. But such errors do not occur without a cause. Shortage of manpower has led to train drivers working on longer shifts, enhancing the possibility of accidents.

Nearly 20,000 posts of locomotive drivers and assistant drivers have been lying vacant for years. In the trains involved in the accident there is no trace of Kavach, an automatic train protection system which has been on field trial since 2016. Kavach has been deployed in less than 1500 kilometres of railway tracks while the Indian Railways have 70,000 kilometres in terms of tracks.

This statistic sums up the whole story.

Little headway has been made in the matter of railway passengers’ safety as there has been exercise of scanty will to find a way out though every life lost is one too many. Funding is less of a constraint now as the capital outlay of Indian Railways has been raised nine times from 2013-14 to date.

One wonders if there has been disproportionate policy focus on the more eye-catching aspects of modernisation. The project Vande Bharat readily comes to mind. An unbiased enquiry would reveal whether back bending endeavours to please and curry favours with the powers that be was made at the expense of passenger safety. Meanwhile, a more encompassing and comprehensive approach is called for to ensure those who board trains all over the country every day breathe easy during their journeys and arrive at their destinations safe and sound. (IPA Service)