Date:09/01/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/01/09/stories/2003010903431100.htm

National

Senior officials to be held accountable

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 8. Shaken by two train accidents on the South-Central Railway in less than a month in which about 40 persons lost their lives, the Railway Ministry today said that senior officials would be accountable in case of serious crashes.

At a special meeting of the Railway General Managers to review the safety mechanism, five major decisions on safety aspects were taken. The last GMs meeting was held on September 28, three weeks after the Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani Express accident.

The most significant decision was to lay down "clear cut accountability norms" where the General Managers and Divisional Railway Managers would also be held responsible in case of serious accidents.

Addressing a press conference later, the Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, said that greater financial powers were being delegated to the General Managers for safety works. But, there was a rider, their control over larger purse-strings would be accompanied by attendant accountability. The financial powers of the GMs were being raised from Rs. 3 crores to Rs. 10 crores for carrying out safety-related works.

In another major step, which is likely to have far-reaching consequences in enforcing safety norms, it was decided to make the two crucial institutions multi-disciplinary. The Chief Safety Officer in each of the 11 railway zones as well as the Commissioner, Railway Safety, would now be drawn from all relevant operational streams like mechanical, civil and signalling.

The two posts would be open to all disciplines other than the Railway Protection Force, Medical, Personnel, Accounts and Stores as recommended by the Railway Safety Review Committee. Hitherto, it was only open to the Traffic Department.

Similarly, the posting of the CRS would be on similar lines and the recommendation would be soon sent to the Civil Aviation Ministry, which exercises control over the CRS. Till now, the CRS were drawn only from the civil engineering stream and turning it multi-disciplinary unit would make railway officers from signalling, electrical, mechanical and traffic eligible for being posted as CRS and their expertise could come in handy in examining and probing the causes of accidents.

The Minister said that the backlog of vacancies in the safety category would be cleared soon. It would mean recruitment of nearly 10,000 Group "D" staff all over the country. The two recent train accidents were "shameful and unfortunate", Mr. Kumar said and admitted that there was need for strict inspection and monitoring of safety norms.

While the Railway Board would have greater supervision over working of the senior officials, there was no need for the senior officials to rush to the Board for every financial and administrative matter related to safety. Processes such as inviting and finalising tenders would be strictly time-bound. "All weak areas are being addressed to. We are also tightening the inspection schedules."

Referring to the Rs. 17,000 crore Special Railway Safety Fund (SRSF), which was created on October 1, 2001 to wipe out arrears in the renewal of over-aged assets in the next six years, he said that Rs. 2,210 crores was allocated during 2002-03 while Rs. 1,400 crore was spent during the previous fiscal on track renewal, bridges, signalling equipment and rolling stock.

In 2001-02, 415 train accidents took place. On an average, 385 persons died in the train accidents every year in the last five years. Each year, 148 deaths were caused by collisions, 51 due to derailment and 36 at manned level crossings.