The Madras High Court on Thursday called for a report based on a comparative study from the General Manager of the Southern Railways on how trains are operated in different States.
Hearing a public interest litigation petition seeking installation of automatic doors in all coaches of trains plying between Chennai and its suburbs, Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad ordered that either the general manager or any other competent authority should submit the report at the earliest. The PIL petitioner, K. Sathish, an advocate, had also sought installation of automatic doors in trains operated on elevated railway lines in the city under the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS).
The case was filed after the death of five commuters of a crowded suburban train at St. Thomas Mount here on July 24. They had been travelling on the footboard at the time of the incident and had hit a concrete fence abutting a platform at the railway station, the petitioner said, and sought to prevent recurrence of such incidents by installing doors in coaches.
Noting that Metro trains were being operated with automatic doors, which close before the trains chug out of a station and open on reaching the next station, the petitioner wanted similar doors to be installed on the coaches in other suburban trains too. He said that safety should be the main priority for the railways rather than making money.
Case in Allahabad HC
During the course of hearing of the case on Thursday, it was brought to the notice of the judges that a similar issue was raised before the Allahabad High Court in 2011. Then, the court directed the Railway Board to submit a status report after considering the possibility of installing automatic doors on all trains operated by the Indian Railways.
That status report listed out the “anticipated challenges” in operation of automatic doors in regular trains. One of the main challenges was to prevent fatalities and injuries due to malfunctioning of such doors, the board said. It also pointed out that complaints of malfunctioning and injuries were common in metro rail fitted with automatic doors.
Further, since the number of coaches in regular trains were more than in metro rail, detection of malfunctioning in a particular coach would be time consuming and lead to a cascading delay in operation of trains, the report added. It also made a mention with respect to huge investments that would be required to install automatic doors.
Based on the coach holding as on March 31, 2012, and an annual production figure of 3,500 coaches per annum, it was estimated that an annual expenditure of ₹700 crore would be required for provision of automatic doors in new coaches apart from ₹13,438 crore for retrofitment on a total of 51,686 coaches.
