Railway accident report card: Why Modi govt's claims are off-track
While number of accidents has come down in past decade, number of deaths per accident has gone up significantly, flagging serious safety concerns
The Indian Railways has been publicising what it claims is a vastly improved safety track record in a decade of Narendra Modi regime, from 2014-15 to 2023-24 (FY14 to FY24).
But the accident report card of the country’s largest transporter still isn’t pretty.
29 accidents in 8 months
Between April 1 and November 26 this year, the total number of accidents was 29, averaging at least three a month. Seventeen people lost their lives in the eight months of this fiscal year alone, or about two a month. And 71 others were injured.
Ten fatalities and 43 injuries occurred when a goods train collided with a passenger train from the rear between the Rangapani and Chattar Hat stations in Bengal in June this year. Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha that an “error in train working” was the reason for this deadly accident.
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The death and injury numbers given above are the stats for just the current fiscal year.
Vaishnaw, meanwhile continued to emphasise the “steep decline” in accidents during the Modi decade. In a written reply, he said, “As a consequence of various safety measures taken over the years, there has been a steep decline in the number of accidents. Consequential train accidents have reduced from 135 in 2014-15 to 40 in 2023-24…The number of accidents during the period April to October 2024 is 25, as compared to 67 during the same period in 2013”.
Are accidents more deadly now?
Between FY15 and FY24, there were 678 accidents, 748 deaths and 2,087 injuries, according to the Minister. This, he said, was far better than the previous decade, when there had been 1,711 consequential train accidents, 904 deaths and 3,155 injuries.
However, even as the number of accidents has reduced, the ratio of the number of deaths to the number of accidents in the FY15 to FY24 period has risen. From just 0.52 in the FY05 to FY14 decade, it has risen to 1.1 in FY15 to FY24. In other words, the number of people dying in train accidents has increased despite a decline in the total number of accidents.
Also read: 200 train accidents claimed 351 lives in past 5 years: Railways data
Vaishnaw said accidents occurred due to equipment failure, environmental conditions, human errors and sabotage. He then went on to provide copious details of the increased expenditure on various safety measures.
Multiple questions, stock answer
Expenditure on track renewals, he said, had gone up 2.33 times in FY15-FY24 compared to the previous decade; expenditure on primary track renewal is up 1.34 times, the expenditure on new tracks has at least doubled; unmanned level crossings have been completely eliminated; expenditure on electronic interlocking at stations is up by 3.52 times. The total budgeted expenditure on safety-related activities for FY25 is nearly Rs 1.09 lakh-crore.
The Railways Minister has been giving the same, verbatim reply to multiple questions in the two houses of Parliament on his ministry’s safety record.
Since the Winter Session began, there have been at least four questions in the Rajya Sabha under different heads: compensation paid to accident victims, measures being adopted to reduce accidents and the number of accidents.
Each time, the minister’s reply has quoted the decline in the number of accidents and the increase in safety-related expenditure. In the Lok Sabha too, the same reply has been given verbatim to eight separate questions by different members of Parliament, on any and all queries related to railway accidents.
Also read: The buck stops at Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's table
Congestion and safety
While the ministry has been at pains to underline the substantial increase in expenditure for safety projects, experts have flagged massive congestion in the railway network as one of the reasons for lax safety practices.
Alok Kumar Verma, a retired chief engineer with the Railways, had earlier quoted the National Rail Plan devised by the national transporter itself to point out that about 10,000 km of the trunk routes across the network is so congested that its capacity utilisation is at 125 per cent.
“Amid such congestion, if there is systemic failure somewhere along the network, a lot of trains get bunched up…When trains start bunching up, the effect could be felt for several 100 km on the network and the aftereffects last two-three days before operations normalise. During this time, there can be no inspection and no maintenance work, even if it is a scheduled maintenance block,” Verma pointed out.
So, congestion and delayed trains may be one of the reasons for safety practices across the railways network getting affected.
Also read: A list of the deadliest train tragedies that the world has witnessed
Privatisation fears
Meanwhile, the Opposition has alleged that the government wants to reduce the autonomy of the Railways and privatise it by coming up with the Railways (Amendment) Bill 2024.
The government proposes to merge the Indian Railways Board Act, 1905 with the Railways Act, 1989 into the one unified law — the Railways (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
