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Context
The recent derailment mishap of Utkal express at Khatauli calls for a quick and a larger safety elevation What makes train travel so unsafe in India?
Derailment
Derailment seems to be the most common cause for train accidents. Reports of the Railway Ministry for 2015 and 2016 list a conflicting number of derailments in 2014. The number of derailments that took place in 2015 are greater than those in 2014, according to the 2016 report Rail fractures
Rail fractures are caused by extreme weather that causes tension on railway tracks. What makes rail fractures even dangerous is the fact that they are not very apparent as even with ultrasonic detection Rail fractures occurrence may increase during night time especially during winters when temperature is low. Corrosion
Corrosion is another reason that may lead to accidents. Tracks that are 1-2 year old are more prone to track accidents Overcrowded train coaches
Coaches filled beyond capacity are also a hazard as any overloaded vehicle is severely susceptible to toppling over. Some coaches have been made at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) and are infamous for piling up on collision. Stainless steel Linke Hoffman Busch (LHB) coaches are more efficient at shock absorption and can reduce incidents of derailment. Why In the news?
Thirteen coaches of the Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express derailed at Khatauli, near Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, killing at least 23 people. Nearly 70% of the 303 rail accidents reported between 2012-13 and 2015-16 were caused by carelessness of railway staff, which includes shortcuts in maintenance work and failure to heed safety norms. The Railways has over 1.14 lakh km of tracks, but their renewal, the Ministry told the Parliamentary Committee on Railways, depends on the financial resources allotted in a given year rather than the length of tracks that need refreshing A five-year corporate safety plan, first announced in the Rail Budget for 2015-16, has been drafted, but is yet to be approved. Problem with the execution Since 2012, six of every 10 rail accidents in India have happened because of mistakes by or the negligence of railway staff, according to a study by NITI Aayog. In the year to 31 March 2017, 66 of 104 consequential rail accidents were attributed to failure of railway staff according to Indian Railways data. Indian Railways has divided its 66,030 km of track into 1,219 sections and out of these 492 are running at 100% capacity, in some cases more. Most accidents occur on these over-capacity routes. Counter measures
The railway ministry has already initiated measures like inducting modern coaches, creating a safety fund as well as incorporating new technology to not only plug accidents due to derailments, but also to reduce casualties.The national transporter will invest Rs 15,000 crore in the current fiscal (year) to fix the snags on its network. Railways has 1,22,911 vacancies in safety categories and a shortage of another 17,464 loco running staff. The railways has ramped up considerably its maintenance technology which is also quicker but insufficient headway remains a concern. The number of trains keeps rising while the track length does not increase accordingly Two key projects launched in 2005 are the 1,504 km-long western dedicated freight corridor (DFC) and the 1,318 km-long eastern DFC, roughly corresponding to the overworked Mumbai-Delhi and Howrah-Delhi lines where the utilisation varies between 115 per cent and 150 per cent, according to the India Spend report . Mission Zero accident
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu had launched ‘mission zero accident’ in the 2016-17 Rail Budget for carrying out a special drive to curb accidents. Crossings
In the 2016-17 fiscal, the railways eliminated 1,503 unmanned level crossings and 484 manned level crossings by constructing road over-bridges and under-bridges. Additional security
The Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh, a special safety fund, was created in the 2017-18 budget with a corpus of Rs. 1 lakh crore over a period of five years for financing critical safety-related works. Discover more from Free UPSC IAS Preparation Syllabus and Materials For Aspirants Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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