The Hindu : Safety on the rails

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 24, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Safety on the rails

THE DERAILMENT OF at least nine bogies of the Kacheguda-Bangalore Express at Pagidirai village (in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh) should serve as a reminder to the Railway administration and the political bosses in the Ministry of the falling standards of safety on the rails. While an inquiry by personnel qualified and familiar with rail operations alone could help identify the cause of the accident, the mandarins in the department are already out (as is their wont in recent times) with statements that the accident was due to sabotage. True, preliminary investigations at the site are leading to evidence that a portion of the track where some bogies of the ill-fated train had reportedly jumped off the rails was found cut and the police officials have found broken pieces of blades and a hacksaw near the spot of the accident. This, however, needs to be investigated and it is best to leave such things to a team of professionals qualified for such tasks before a final conclusion is made on the cause of the accident. Derailment, after all, could be caused by several factors and a damaged track is only one among them. Poor maintenance of coaches too can lead to such accidents. It is a fact that the Railway administration has neglected such areas as servicing the rolling stock, ballast and other critical areas of rail management in the past few years. It is for these reasons that it becomes difficult to resist the temptation of reacting to the "sabotage'' theory with scepticism.

Be that as it may, going by the evidence gathered from the accident site — the fact that a portion of the track had been cut off — and the conclusion that this could have been possible only after those behind the sabotage had worked on the operation for several hours (the rails cannot be cut in a short time by using hacksaw blades), reveals that the section where the accident occurred was left un-patrolled for a considerable length of time. The operations manual lays down very clearly that the tracks need to be patrolled, as a matter of routine, on a daily basis. Patrolling the tracks by men, recruited for this very purpose, is an integral aspect of railway operations and the purpose behind this is to ensure that acts of sabotage (on the tracks) do not lead to derailment and the consequent loss of lives. The Pagidirai accident could have been averted if only the tracks in this section were patrolled. There was no way that a portion of the track could have been cut (the police have gone on record that "the rail has been sawed over a period of several days") if there was regular patrolling in this section. Hence, it is imperative that the Railway administration account for its failure in this context rather than throw the blame on the State Government on the plea that preventing sabotage is the duty of the State Government. Here is a case of negligence on the part of the railway personnel responsible for ensuring that the tracks are intact before clearing trains for passage in the section.

Among the reasons for such failures is the shortage of manpower. Such a statement may appear to be out of tune with the overall context where the Railways (like several other concerns run by the Government) is considered to be over-staffed. However, the truth is that several departments, particularly those concerned with the operation of the rail network, have been rendered short of staff due to a distorted policy — matching surrender — followed by the administration over the years where posts falling vacant in critical areas such as maintaining the rolling stock and tracks were used to accommodate personnel in the non-operating divisions. The recent decision to carve out additional zones and the claims by the Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, in the wake of protests against such a decision that creating the new zones will not entail additional financial commitments is a case in point. The fact is that such measures are bound to cause shortage in areas of rail operations such as the strength of the Permanent Way gangs and the Running Staff. This, by implication, will have its impact on safety measures in that there will be very little scope for taking precautions against sabotage. The derailment in Kurnool district, if it was due to sabotage, is indeed a case in point.

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