High Level Safety Review Committee constituted by the Ministry of Railways and headed by the eminent scientist Dr. Anil Kakodkar gave its report in Feb 2012. Major recommendations of the Committee include: Elimination of all Level Crossings(manned and unmanned) in the next five years with an estimated cost of Rs. 50,000 crores. Maintenance of safety related infrastructure at a cost of Rs. 20,000 crores. Implementation of Advance Signaling System through Special Purpose Vehicle covering 19,000 km of trunk route with an estimated cost of Rs. 20,000 crore. All new coaches will be of safer LHB type with a total cost of Rs. 10,000 crore. Total financial implication for the implementation of the committee report is Rs.1,00,000 crore which has to be funded by safety cess on passengers, deferred dividend, grant by Central government etc. In a bare-all, scathing report, the countrys leading nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar has directly questioned the ability of the railways to ensure the safety of over 18 million Indians who travel by trains every day. Kakodkars report, running into nearly 160 pages, is a tale of how the passengers have been surviving on sheer luck. Unless the railways sets into motion an immediate modernisation plan that includes advance signaling, safe coaches, anti-collision devices, advance-warning system and strengthening of the tracks as well as laying new ones, the regular train passenger has to travel at his own risk. Kakodkar headed a high-level safety panel constituted by the railway ministry and came out with a stinging indictment of the operational gaps posing safety risks. The panel has submitted its report, which raises several critical questions on railways operations, to railway minister Dinesh Trivedi. The panel has questioned the quality of metallurgical and chemical solutions used in the steel being used for tracks. Taking aim at railways technical arm, the Research, Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO), the panel noted: The RDSO has been unable to find technological solutions to the defective tracks issue and no attempt has been made to trace back the root cause of failures in terms of steel melting and rolling defects, including improper handling of the rails. The air-pressure brakes, often used to park trains at stations and in the yards, are leaking and cannot hold beyond 30 minutes to five hours in most cases. Usually, the pressure should hold for at least 15 hours. No wonder, two standing trains just collide suddenly or a train just starts moving in the reverse direction for many kilometres before it is stopped. Next is improper track maintenance. Stop introducing new trains without commensurate infrastructure, including maintenance of corridors. Today, Indian Railways is using most corridors beyond 100 per cent and it is difficult to carry out planned and systematic maintenance on trunk routes (20,000kms of high-density network) as there is no time available due to excess traffic, the panel report said. Equally critical is the state of the ageing 3,000-plus rail bridges, which are not monitored scientifically and are a perennial safety hazard each time a train passes over. The railway minister parried questions about the report and its major recommendations, including levying a safety cess on passengers. These are all suggestions by the panel. We have not decided on anything yet, he said. Significantly, it was none other than the minister himself who termed the railways as a sick operation in desperate need of an overhaul on February 2. If immediate corrective measures were not taken, running the railways could soon turn untenable - operationally as well as financially, Trivedi had said. Given the spate of as many as 55 accidents between April 2011 and November 2011 alone, Kakodkar does not seem to be very far off the mark. Nearly 30 per cent of the derailments are caused by defective tracks, the panel said. The rise in rail and weld fractures of tracks has increased with the allowing of excess wagon load. Even the Integral Coach Factoryproduced coaches are unsafe to travel beyond a speed of 50-60kmph. Read more at: indiatoday.intoday.in/story/poor-safety-standard-of-indian-railways-poor-anil-kakodkar/1/174284.html
Posted on: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 03:49:19 +0000
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