Railway minister Suresh Prabhu expressed pain over a recent spate of railway accidents that marked the end of his two year term.
Taking credit for Wi-fi and GPRS enabled trains, the technocrat minister has indicated that chronic underinvestment and systemic issues have made a dent on the country's largest transporter's safety records.
"Recent train accidents have anguished and pained me beyond words. We had started on this mission to make Indian Railways safe two years ago, when I joined office," Prabhu said in a public statement.
"Systemic issues accumulated over years take time to be resolved. Chronic underinvestment in infrastructure has affected the safety of rail network. Much has been done, but there is still so much more to do to make Indian Railways a safer mode of transport," Prabhu said, before giving a report on the initiatives to enhance passenger safety in Indian Railways.
Giving his report card, Prabhu said though in the last two years railways capital expenditure has only gone up by Rs 7,000 Cr (to Rs 46.048 cr), in this fiscal it is likely to go up by Rs 7,700 cr.
The railway minister have claimed that pace of track renewal has been increased to over 2,000 km per year. He said the rail ministry is 'working on a mission' to eliminate all unmanned level crossings by 2019.
Meanwhile, to reduce slippage of coaches from track while on inclines, as did happen in some recent railway accidents, the minister has announced that all passenger coaches will be retrofitted and improved with anti-climbing and anti-telescopic features over the next four to five years.
Another reason that have culminated to rail accidents this year was due aging and weakened tracks. Introduction of Ultrasonic Broken Rail Detection System, to detect rail fractures on a real time basis, and of train collision avoidance system along high density routes have been promised by Prabhu.
On event of some of the recent spate of rail accidents, Indian Railways have also entered into research partnerships and sought help from them to improve railway safety. These research bodies include Railway Technical Research Institute, Japan and Korean Rail Research Institute.
In the past two years, in 17 train accident incidents, more than 500 passengers lost their lives and twice that number of people were reported injured.
With things promised on a fast track, evealuation of Prabhu's tenure as railway minister could very well be determined on his passenger safety record. Succesful implementation of some of the safety measures at a rapid pace is what is now expected from the railway minister.
