Getting railway safety back on track after Odisha

Source– The post is based on the article “Getting railway safety back on track after Odisha” published in “The Hindu” on 9th June 2023.

Syllabus: GS3- Disaster management

Relevance– Issues related to rail accident

News- A major train accident happened at Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore district, Odisha, on the evening of June 2.

What may be the possible causes of the accident?

There is interlocking of signals and routes through a series of relays and logic gates. It ensures that a train is guided by signals to a route to avoid an encounter with another train. In this case, this interlocking might be overridden by manual intervention.

There are two possible causes. In the first, it was done by a signal maintainer who has access to the equipment hut or relay room. He may have acted in haste to expedite the maintenance work so that the running train is not affected.

In the second instance, it is done with criminal intention to cause an accident.

However, it is quite surprising to understand that a signal maintainer can meddle with the system and cause havoc of this magnitude.

The heart of the interlocking equipment is housed in a central relay room in the main station building. The station master and the maintainer have keys to a double lock.

The tampering with equipment in this room is possible by the maintainer, in connivance with the station master. But, the chances of this are low.

On the other hand, there are some pieces of remote equipment installed in huts and location boxes. The access to these is possible only by the authorised maintainer. The possibilities of tampering are greater in such locations.

What is the way forward to avoid such types of accidents?

Stronger safeguards against such misadventures are needed.

The provision of a double lock system even for remote huts in railway stations can be explored. But it increases the chances of train delays.

This is an age of mobile phones and IT applications, and it is possible to have a system of multiple digital authorisations to access such equipment without the physical movement of staff other than the maintainers.

The rail network in India is largely saturated, the number of train services has gone up exponentially. There is a need to fill all vacancies in the safety categories.

The provision of Kavach could not have prevented this accident. But other aspects of safety do demand faster implementation of Kavach. This would not only enhance rail safety but also improve the sectional capacity to run more trains.