Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
India’s deadliest rail accident triggered by a debilitating system that has no emphasis on human safety cannot simply be left to an official investigation.
288 lives lost and over 1000 injured out of 3,400 on board was no mere an accident but was a catastrophe that was made to look genocidal by human neglect.
Morally a mass murder
Pending the outcome of an inquiry by the Commissioner of Railway’s Safety works under the Ministry of Civil Aviation), there are systematic ills that have contributed to this accident.
The grievous compromises made in the safety aspects, of so, then it was murderous.
No toilet breaks even
The tight-lipped Indian Railways is beset by a debilitating paucity of non-gazetted staff – about 3.12 lakh posts (out of 14.75 lakh Group C posts) are lying vacant, say sources in the Railways. This paucity has also led to locomotive pilots working far beyond the stipulated 12 hours. The eight-hour work while underlining that in many cases, locomotive pilots have been denied leave, rest, and on occasions, did not get time for personal relief.
Further, in Oct 2022, the Railway Ministry increased the speed of 500 trains. Presently, the Railways run about 3240 mail/express trains, 3000 passenger trains, and 5600 suburban trains. However, there hasn’t been a corresponding expansion of railway infrastructure including tracks. As a consequence, many trains are running with short time gaps in between, which calls for precision control. Thus, even a minor failure of a control system holds the potential for a disaster.
Second fiddle to safety
The implementation of contemporary signalling and train anti-collision systems have not kept pace with the expansion of railway traffic. Evidently, train and passenger safety are not the foremost priority, with primacy being given to the “passenger experience” and the ongoing privatised modernisation drive for 1,275 railway stations.
