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Utkal mishap not just due to negligence

Last Updated 23 August 2017, 07:09 IST
Derailment is being blamed for the accident involving the Utkal Express near Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in which over two dozen passengers have died and hundreds have been injured. More than half of all train accidents in the last five years have been due to derailment, but the most tragic aspect of the latest accident is that it was totally avoidable. Repair work was being carried out on the track through which the train was to pass without any intimation to the nearest railway station, where the authorities could have stopped or slowed down the train and avoided the catastrophe. With the government taking a serious view of the lapse, four railway officials have been suspended, the chief track engineer of Northern Railways has been transfer-red and three other officials have been sent on leave.

The accident, however, raises larger issues about railway tracks and whether successive governments have done all they could to make them safer. Indian Railways employs nearly 13 lakh workers to maintain over 1,14,000 km of tracks and 7,000 stations handling 25 million passengers and 2.45 milliontonnes of freight every day. There exists a clear deficiency of over 2.5 lakh workforce, mostly in Group C and D employees, which include the foot soldiers of Indian Railways -- the linesman. These are always the first casualties in any cost-cutting exercise. Over the years, linesmen have been retiring, but their replacements are not being hired. Downsizing of this workforce over the last few years has increased the risk of accidents many times over. Linesmen are now expected to travel longer distances in the same working hours, thereby compromising the tracks’ safety. Since they are the last safety net as far as passengers’ lives are concerned, their work cannot be outsourced to contractors or be overlooked.

The government must accept and understand that aging tracks need more manpower to maintain them, as these are being over-utilised. Reducing manpower to save money at a time when derailments have become a major factor for accidents points to the wrong priorities of the government. In its report submitted five years ago, the Anil Kakodkar Committee had noted that deficiency in critical safety spares in most departments was almost 50% and manpower in safety-related activities was short by 27-32%. Despite these shortages, Indian Railways has been consistently reducing manpower for the last three years. In June, Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain told Parliament that while some “practical measures” had been taken, no headway had been made to create the railway safety authority suggested by the committee.
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(Published 21 August 2017, 16:54 IST)

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