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EPW Editorial                                    July 14, 2001

It has taken four successive disasters and a huge loss of lives, at Khanna, Gaisal, Fatehgarh and noKadalundi, for the central government to offer a lifeline to the beleaguered Indian railways – a Rs 17,000 crore safety fund, to wipe out the huge arrears in assets long overdue for replacement. A fund recommended over two years ago, but which was readily sanctioned this time following the indignation and outcry widely highlighted by the media after six bogies of the Mangalore-Chennai mail, plunged off a bridge on the Kadalundi river in Kerala. This disaster occurs just a couple of years after the grievous Gaisal accident in Bihar, the Khanna disaster in Punjab and the 1989 Island Express disaster where the train plunged off the Ashtamudi river, claiming many victims. But will the fund make any change in the railways' attitude to disasters?

The inquiry that followed Kerala's Island Express disaster in 1989 attributed it to a freak typhoon that struck just as the train crossed the bridge while the railways' lack of preparedness did not come to light. This time too, railway officials who have addressed the media have already pointed to such factors as the sudden sinking of a pier along the 240m bridge as the probable reason for the derailment, for, it has been claimed, the bridge showed no other visible sign of defect. According to them, it was geological shifting of the riverbed following heavy rains that vitiated train alignment and was probably responsible for the sinking. 

Interestingly Bridge Rehabilitation Committee formed soon after the 1989 disaster and a number of other bridge collapses had recommended the scrapping of the Kadalundi river bridge in four years as it could not withstand the running of a mail or express train for long. Yet not only did the bridge witness almost a doubling in traffic since the completion of the Konkan railway, there have been no speed restriction posted. The Mangalore-Chennai express was travelling at its usual speed of 100 kmph, considerably faster than it should on a bridge that has been recommended for the scrap heap. The committee had also specified the bridge to be a non-standard, that is, an old one, not having been built as per standards specified for the new ones. Similar other bridges, over 50,000 including the Kadalundi river bridge, of the railways' 1.19 lakh bridges, were built in the 19th century. Of these, 262 were earmarked as 'distressed' by the Railway Safety Review Committee under H R Khanna, that also recommended an investment of Rs 130 crore every year, along with additional outlays for fresh accruals. But till the time of the Kadalundi rail disaster, the annual expenditure for bridges averaged less than half this required amount. Little was done by way of implementing the recommendations of the Bridge Rehabilitation Committee; the Bridge Steering Committee set up with structural engineers as advisors from IIT Chennai and Roorkee Engineering College was also wound up in 1992, its advisors left in disgust. 

This neglect of the recommendations of a committee comprising technical experts calls for some explanations. And it is imperative that the inquiry committee set up for the most recent disaster takes cognisance of these recommendations. In the circumstances it is no wonder that there is a growing scepticism about inquiry committee reports. But there is evidence that a public outcry against railway negligence is building up. For instance, last year in the PIL submitted by an NGO, Common Cause, initiated a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking to indict the government for its failure in making public, successive inquiry commission reports of the many railway accidents or even acting on their recommendations. For instance, the Khanna accident occurred in 1998, but there is no report yet and the inquiry into the Rajpura accident that happened in 2000, is yet to commence. Meanwhile recommendations of other inquiry commissions gather dust – for instance, modernised safety signals suggested by the commission set up in the wake of the 1995 Puroshottam express crash in UP remain unimplemented. 

In its response to the PIL, the railways has claimed that the resource crunch prevents it from attending to safety requirements which are a part of modernisation. By the railways own estimate almost 24,000 km of track throughout the country is considered unsafe; but each year sees only a small portion of it targeted for renewal. While the compression of the rail budget is a factor, railway safety cannot be compromised. 

The point is to prioritise safety issues whether it is track renewal, modernising, staff management, etc. It is here that the safety fund will play a role, but it will not be adequate if safety does not become a priority issue in all its functioning. While the fund is welcome in several ways – for the organisation has to wipe out its huge list of overaged assets that include not just bridges but tracks, signaling gear, rolling stock, manual level crossings, etc – its operational aspects remain to be still worked out. Now that the excuse of a funds crunch has been dealt with, at least to some extent, will the railways begin to shake the dust off the covers of old reports dealing with safety?

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