A tragedy triggered by 'derailed' system

 None of the three Ministers of State (MoS) could rush to the accident-site till late evening,  and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) also took more than four hours to gear up to the challenge posed by the accident.

The lack of political leadership was so obvious that Mukul Roy, the most important of the Ministers of State in the ministry was virtually not doing any thing. He was away in Kolkata. Another MoS  K H Muniayppa planned it only to start very late.   The lack of political leadership was, to some extent, compensated by the quick response of the railway bureaucracy. New Railway Board Chairman Vinay Mittal along with two members of the Railway Board and other high officials rushed to the spot.

The time line of the accidents and the activities in its response say many things. The accident at Fatehpur took place at 12:10 pm in the noon and any major movement from Delhi could materialize only after the elapse of four valuable hours. According to sources, the NDRF team stationed at Greater Noida, a suburb near Delhi, could start only after  4 pm with necessary equipments and medial help. The NDRF battalion at Greater Noida is under the command of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

“The NDRF team, comprising 120-odd people, who will help the passengers medically, is on its way at the behest of Chairman of the Railway board.  Railway Board Chairman , Vinay Mittal  spoke to the army authorities and requested their help, keeping in view the accident and its consequences, it was advance action that we took,” he said.

Cause of accident

Railway spokesperson Chandralekha Mukherjee denied any comment over the cause of the accident and said, “At this moment we are unable to say any thing on it. The enquiry team has been constituted under the leadership of the Commissioner of Railway Safety of North Eastern Railway PK Vajpayee.” 

However, a high level source in the ministry said that it was a case of ‘sudden breaking’ which caused coaches to run over one-another. “The ‘sudden breaking’ nowadays does not cause that casualty which it earlier used to do. Now we have anti-telescopic coaches. This does not allow coaches into each other. It causes less of causalities,” the ministry source said.