The Mysore Division of the South Western Railways intends to close all 204 unmanned level crossing gates in its jurisdiction within three years to enhance passenger safety.
This can be achieved by converting the unmanned level crossing gates into manned gates or by way of constructing road under bridges. The Division, which is observing Level Crossing Awareness Week from June 1 to 5 to mark International Level Crossing Awareness (ILCA) Day held in June 3 every year, has launched a series of awareness programmes to mark the occasion.
The Divisional Railway Manager Rajkumar Lal said that the railways have identified 79 unmanned level crossing gates that are sensitive with a high-level of rail and road traffic and introduced temporary staff to man the gate to avoid accidents. This temporary staffs are called ‘Gate Mitras’ and this has helped eliminate accidents at the unmanned level crossing gates in the division, said Mr. Lal.
Mysore Division has the highest number of unmanned level-crossing gates compared to other divisions –Bengaluru and Hubballi – in Karnataka. In all, there are 464 level crossing gates in the Mysore Division of which 260 are manned. The authorities plan to convert 128 such unmanned gates into manned gates during 2015-16 and will eliminate all of them in three years time.
T. Venkateshwar Rao, Senior Divisional Safety Officer of the Mysore Division said there were 29,487 LC gates in the country of which 10,440 were unmanned and they were to be gradual eliminated for increased passenger and motorists safety. Between 2009-10 and 2014-15, there were nine casualties due to accidents at the unmanned level crossing gates in the Mysuru division.
