National

Railways ill-prepared to handle disasters

NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has picked holes in the Disaster Management System of the Railways, saying the organisation was not prepared to deal with all kinds of disasters.

In its performance audit report for the period ended March 2007, the CAG said the disaster management plan lacked cohesiveness and was far from comprehensive taking into account the post-incidence response of the Railways.

The Railways failed in rapidly accessing the sites with rescue and relief equipment and coordinating with private agencies within the “golden hour”— within the first hour of the accident. Accident Relief Trains and Accident Relief Medical Vans (ARMVs) reached the site much behind the stipulated time in 124 out of the 138 incidents.

During the July 11, 2006 bomb blasts aboard seven trains in Mumbai, even before the ARMVs arrived, the victims had been shifted to nearby hospitals by volunteers. The reason attributed was the absence of a diesel locomotive in the vicinity of 75 km of the Mumbai division capable of running at 100 kmph. Instead, a locomotive with a speed capacity of 45 kmph hauled an ARMV.

The delayed arrival of relief trains and equipment delayed restoration work after 78 out of 109 incidents.

Only 25 per cent of the frontline staff were trained to respond in case of a disaster. Training programmes were not held in several divisions and where the exercise was conducted, attendance was poor.

Work on track renewal and rehabilitation of bridges and overaged locomotives taken up under the Special Railway Safety Fund, set up with a corpus of Rs. 17,000 crore, was way behind schedule.

Twenty-four of the 136 bridges declared distressed were not even listed for repairs.

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