Challenges have just begun for the newly appointed Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, as one after the other trains are derailing from the tracks.
Former Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu along with Chairman of the Board AK Mittal had resigned from the post taking all the responsibilities of the two fierce rail accidents that happened between 18 Aug and 24 Aug. Though the resignation of Prabhu was kept on the wait by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the cabinet reshuffle, he was replaced by Piyush Goyal as the new Railway Minister.
But still, the accidents do not seem to stop with the change in ministers. In a single day on 7 Sep, there were as many as three derailment incidents and one was thankfully averted. On Thursday morning at 6:25 am seven coaches of the Jabalpur-bound Shaktipunj Express derailed near the Obra Dam station in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district. The second incident on the same day occurred just hours after at 11:45 am when the Ranchi-Delhi Rajdhani Express derailed near Minto bridge in Delhi. The third mishap was at 3:55 pm when another derailment of goods train in Maharashtra’s Khandala took place. Meanwhile, the fourth tragedy was thankfully averted when few people spotted a fracture in a track between Farrukhabad and Fatehgarh in Uttar Pradesh, minutes before the Kalindi Express was scheduled to pass the place.
These continuous derailments have forced the Railway Minister to take immediate actions to get the safety of the trains back on track. Piyush Goyal on Thursday called for a special meeting to hold discussions regarding the possible measures to curb the issue. During the meeting, he ordered all the officials to make the renewal of the tracks as the major priority. However, the minister was taken aback when the chairman of railway board (CRB) said that “maintenance remains a constraint, particularly on high-density routes, and there is no sufficient time.”
The chairman revealed that the derailment of Utkal express near Muzzafarnagar in UP which killed 223 people was because the staff working on the maintenance of the track stopped the work without taking prior permission because they were denied a block due to heavy traffic. He further added that top officials expect completion of dedicated freight corridor as soon as possible, but the manpower required is missing.
The chairman added that maintenance of the tracks includes at least a minimum of 2 lakh trackman and gang men who carry 15kg of equipment and walk a 5-km stretch checking for defects. He complained that highly educated people who join such posts just to grab the government jobs title do not wish to come and work in the fields. “They are not ready to work in the field, but vie for postings in officers’ bungalows,” he said.
During the meeting, another official complained that the maintenance work also lack behind because the staff has to rush to attend complaints regarding the cleanliness of coach or toilets made on Twitter as it is tagged to the PMO or rail minister and needs immediate attention in order to avoid bashing from the ministers.
Listening to the complaints and trying to curb the problems Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has ordered the Railway Board to ensure that Unmanned level crossings are eliminated as soon as possible within a year’s time and he also directed the board to install anti-fog LED lights in locomotives so that operations can run unhindered during winters.