Rlys to strive for zero accident

The Railways is all set to chalk out a long-term corporate safety plan for a period of 10 years and will strive to bring down the number of accidents to zero. Also, plans are afoot to eliminate one-third of the level crossings over the next five years.

Presenting the Rail Budget in the Lok Sabha just about a fortnight after the deadly stampede at the Allahabad railway station, Union Minister for Railways Pawan Kumar Bansal said the tragedy had shaken the Railways. Bansal said that the tragedy happened despite the most meticulous planning and efforts put in by the Railways to take care of the comforts, safety and other requirements of the pilgrims.

The minister proposed upgrading of track structure using 60 kg rails, 260 meter long welded rail-panels and improved flash butt welding technology and induction of Self Propelled Accident Relief Trains with speed potential of 160/200 kmph on trial basis in order to put in place a fast and reliable disaster management system.

He also announced that the railways would eliminate 10,797 level crossings during the 12th Plan and would not add a new one to its system in future. He said that even though the volume of passenger and freight traffic had increased manifold, the number of consequential train accidents per million train km had decreased from 0.41 in 2003-04 to 0.13 at the end of 2011-12.

“The target of bringing this figure to 0.17 by 2012-13, stipulated under the Corporate Safety Plan introduced since 2003 was surpassed in the year 2011-12. We will strive to work towards a zero accident situation,” he said

Bansal proposed to initiate an exercise of making a Corporate Safety Plan for the Indian Railways for a ten year period from 2014 till 2024 to provide long term perspective and focused attention for enhancing safety.

Noting that 40 per cent of consequential accidents and 60 per cent of fatalities are accounted for by level crossings, the minister said that a permanent solution would be to eliminate them.