The Hindu : `White Paper' on rail safety promised

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 07, 2003

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`White Paper' on rail safety promised

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MARCH 6. Even as the Lok Sabha accorded a vote-on-account approval to the "no-fare-no-freight hike" Railway budget for 2003-04, the Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, today asserted that he would present a "White Paper" on rail safety to Parliament during the current session for a threadbare discussion.

In a detailed reply to the marathon debate on a vote-on-account for the Railway budget in the Lok Sabha in which 120 members gave expression to the regional aspirations of their electorate, often reminding the Minister about the promises made by him, Mr. Kumar reiterated that he would like a full-fledged debate on the safety aspects during the current session itself so that the system could be further bolstered.

Later, the House passed by voice vote the vote-on-account of over Rs.14,000 crores till July as also supplementary demand for grant for 2002-03 and relevant appropriation bills.

Dismissing as "incorrect" the opposition charge that lack of passenger safety was directly responsible for the 2.2 per cent drop in passengers traffic, Mr. Kumar asserted that there was no link whatsoever between the fall in the number of passengers and safety.

Quoting past figures, the Minister said the decline in the passenger traffic was largely on account of the fall in the number of short distance and suburban travellers for various reasons including steps taken to check the misuse of season passes. In fact, he said that there had been a 4.7 per cent rise in the number of passengers travelling by Rajdhani, express and mail services.

Also the earnings from passenger traffic had gone up by 13 per cent.

In order to enhance safety on tracks, several steps had been taken including the proposed introduction of a new Anti-Collision Device (ACD) — an indigenous innovation of the Konkan Railways — which has already been subjected to field trials.

As announced earlier while presenting the budget proposals, he reiterated that while ACDs would be installed on 1,800 kms and survey would be carried out on 10,000 kms on the rail network. Collision would then become a thing of the past, he said.

He said that to deal with the problem of cracks, rail fractures and sabotage leading to accidents, the high priority would be accorded to continuous track circuiting programme. This would facilitate stoppage of trains much before the trouble spots, he said.

Claiming that the NDA Government accorded high priority to safety, Mr. Kumar said that the Prime Minister had provided Rs. 17,000 crores for a Special Rail Safety Fund. A sum of Rs. 2,311 crores had been earmarked this year for safety projects.

Even in the face of non-availability of funds, the Railways have been spending more than what has been providing by bridging the gap from internal accruals.

On the demand of the Congress Chief Whip, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, that Government should make public the list of passengers killed in last year's Godhra train tragedy, Mr. Kumar said he was prepared to do so next week. He said additional inputs had been received.

Three Shatabdi Express services — Delhi-Bhatinda, Delhi-Bareli and Howrah-Tatanagar — were withdrawn as they were economically unviable.

Noting that the initial report into the Rafigunj Rajdhani Express accident suggested that it was due to sabotage, the Minister said he favoured making all reports on rail accidents public.

The Railway Minister also announced that the frequencies of New Delhi- Guwahati-Rajdhani Express via Patna would be increased to 5 days a week as against 3 days a week at present and this train operating via Lucknow would continue to be biweekly.

The service would thus operate all the seven days between Delhi and Guwahati.

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