'Green Book' on Rly. safety ready: Minister

By Our Staff Reporter

PALAKKAD, SEPT. 26. The Union Minister of State for Railways, Mr. O. Rajagopal, has said that the `Green Book' on urgent safety- related works to be taken up immediately has been prepared. A sum of Rs. 2,000 crores would be spent this year as a first step towards implementing the Khanna Committee report on railway safety.

Talking to presspersons here today, the Minister said as part of this, all old bridges and the track and signal system would be replaced. In a period of five years, the recommendations of the Khanna Committee would be implemented at a cost of Rs. 17,000 crores. A special team has been constituted to identify the urgent works to be taken up regarding railway safety.

The Khanna Committee had recommended in 1999 that Rs. 15,000 crores should be spent to reconstruct 100-year-old bridges, railway tracks and the signal system. But a high-level meeting called by the Prime Minister some time back decided to implement the recommendations in five years, spending Rs. 2,000 crores more than the amount recommended, he said.

The Minister said there are 51,000 railway bridges and 10,000 km of tracks in the country which are more than a century old. All these are to be reconstructed. But the Railways had not given attention to this safety aspect and money was spent for laying broad gauge lines. Huge amount of money was diverted from the safety work to take up broad gauge work. In a particular year, an amount of Rs. 300 crores was earmarked for gauge work, but a sum of Rs. 1,000 crores was spent on it diverting funds from safety and other works.

There was a lot of corruption behind diverting funds. This led to accidents like the one at Kadalundi. The Railway Standing Committee of Parliament headed by the CPI(M) leader, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, had criticised the diversion of funds neglecting safety aspects.

But the previous Governments did not take any notice of it, he said.

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Section  : Southern States
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