Increasing Rail Accidents in India

Often called “the lifeline of India”, India’s broad railway network operates over 12,000 trains a day and the full-length track could circle the entire globe more than one and a half times. The rail network is one of the country’s largest job providing organizations. Over 700,000 people work on safety-related operations at the country’s largest employer, according to Indian Railways’ response to a Parliament question. A small slip by one of them, or a single flaw in the 66,030 km track crisscrossing the country can affect one or more of 10,773 locomotives, 63,046 coaches and 245,000 wagons, jeopardizing over 23 million passengers and three million tons of freight that the network carries every day. 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 up to 31 March 2017, 66 of 104 rail accidents were attributed to failures of railway staff according to Indian Railways data. And in the three months to 30 June, eight of 11 accidents were attributed to failure of railway staff. Since 1960, Indian Railways has seen growth in infrastructure, expenditure, ridership and freight, but it has been steadfast in terms of accidents: roughly one every three days.

The shortage of 16% security personnel is sufficient to state that actions do not match safety intents here. As of 1 April 2017, the total number of vacancies in safety staff was around 124,200. And this number has been growing steadily over the decades. The shortage means not just lack of manpower but increase in work load of those already employed. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a loco (locomotive)-pilot (engine driver) said: “Our duty hours range from 12-16 hours a day and then, there are the inhuman conditions in which we work. No toilets, no lunch break and engines have no seats.” “How do you expect us to give our best,” he asked? He adds that the government has failed to install toilets in all locomotives. This is indeed a sad plight and recruiting more number of people only seems to be the solution. That or reducing number of trains that run every day – which seems not only unfeasible due to the ever increasing population but seems like running away from the problem at hand. The Times of India reported that 50% of train accidents in the most recent three years have been because of derailments, of which 29% were brought about by track defects.

According to Railway spokesperson Anil Saxena, several factors merge so that they are restrained from carrying out repairs on tracks and inside trains. The easiest of them all to understand is that the large numbers of freight and passenger trains provide the repairmen with a very short time window to repair the damages or to check maintenance from time to time. It can also be noticed that a problem might be lack of unity among the workers. This is because the railways have no specific department for security and maintenance; many departments come together and try to run things smoothly. This often results in lack of coordination. Such inter-departmental rifts halt the proper functioning and smooth running of the system and need to be curbed. 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. Another main problem is the lack of funds. Saxena said that for the ageing infrastructure the average expenditure on track renewal is around Rs 5,548 crore per year and this year it has been increased to Rs 9,961 crore. Similarly, safety-related expenditure has been increased every year —from Rs 42,430 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 65,241 crore in 2017-18.

The recent accidents in Uttar Pradesh have again set off a debate on the issue of railway safety in our country. Last month, 15 coaches of the Sealdah-Ajmer Express got derailed on 28th December, 2016, near the Rura railway station, which is around 50 km away from Kanpur. No less than 43 individuals were injured in the mishap that occurred in the early hours of the morning, when the train was passing over a dry trench. Keeping in mind the ‘correct’ reason for the mishap is yet to be found out, ‘thick haze’ in the zone has been referred to as a reason for derailment. Worryingly, this accident comes only a month after the horrendous derailment of Patna-Indore Express, again near Kanpur, that brought about more than 150 fatalities and harmed more than 200. Train accidents because of derailment have been up by 67% in the fiscal year that ended on November 15, 2016.

So has the railways tried to fly higher than allowed by its wingspan? The last resort left to avoid accidents seems to reduce the number of trains while simultaneously increasing number of employees. The ever increasing population will then find commuting to and fro difficult. But difficulty is better than accidents, isn’t it? Or can we risk accidents for the sake of comfortable traveling?