Shiban Khaibri
The caption for a moment, may appear to mean something about the “more than something” of hullabaloo created by most of the opposition Parties about the historic decision of demonetization of currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs.1000 denominations but it is not that, even though the conditions and the environment created in the country against the so called “financial emergency” coupled with continued disruptions of the proceedings in both the houses of the Parliament and the resultant wastage of the public money followed by the proposed “Aakrosh Diwas” on Nov28 throughout the country , the call for which has been given by the “Maha Gathbandhan” against the demonetization, should have been discussed here . The controversy intentionally created sounds nothing but its pith and core is to deny the expected popularity going sincerely to be earned by the incumbent Government. How far the move succeeds by employing which moves remains to be seen. The caption , however, is about the unfortunate and tragic death of over 150 people and nearly 200 wounded in a recent train accident , the worst in six years at Jansi – Kanpur intersection where as many as 14 coaches of Indore Patna Express train derailed and capsized. The rescue operations were wrapped up after more than active 18 hours which speaks of the extent of the damage to life, not to mention about the collateral losses. That the train met with this horrible accident at the wee hours of the morning near a remote village Pukharayan must have added to the confusion, horror and delay in the bid to save the dying as also retrieve the bodies practically with nothing in hands and none except the villagers to provide elementary help at the outset. However, after an hour or so, there were enough rescue operations pressed into very professionally by the teams of the NDRF, the Police, the army etc and the traffic was resumed after two days . We have to ensure that this accident also ultimately may not meet the same fate the way the earlier ones had to undergo. The customary inquiry instituted to ascertain the causes of this tragedy must come out with identifying the delinquent personnel and propose suitable action as also other structural, administrative and human errors responsible for causing so many deaths of those who were dreaming to reach their destinations safe and sound.
A layman wants to know the causes of this track fracture supposed to be the main villain, and why are our tracks so much stressed ? Why our Railway infrastructure is so much stressed? Why are our Railway personnel too in most of the casers reportedly stressed? Why have we not developed Track Testing System (TTS) on more modern lines as safety of the passengers cannot be compromised ? We have yet to develop on modern lines and with latest technical knowhow, the foolproof Anti Collusion Device. We have as many as more than 80,000 vacant posts of employees in security segments of Railways only as on March 2014 which have not been filled up and which makes the smooth working of the Railways an uphill task. As on date, as per reports, there are nearly 2,00,000 vacancies in different categories of posts in the Railways which have not been filled. The staff shortage results in causing sickness, under performance and an unintentional propensity to commit mistakes which can cause havoc with the safety of the travelling public. The existing staff is under unreasonable pressure and in most of the cases is putting in 15 hours of duty a day.
Decidedly, the reasons of and the answers to all these questions lie in one and one thing and that is the resources crunch. Was Railways starved of the requisite funds and thus neglected by the Congress led UPA rule for the last 10 years? Has this vital part of our economic engine been criminally neglected in matters of replacement of over aged assets, modern signaling and interlocking devices ? why are those over aged Integral Coach Factory wagons still crawling on our tracks and not the new ones, known as LHB coaches as the experts opine that had these new design coaches been in place of the ill fated 14 coaches, the impact of the accident would have been unimaginably minimal.?. Have Railways witnessed being used as a swamp of vote Bank politics? Has populism been at the base of the Railways’ woes?
Is it not quite strange that within hours of this heart rending accident, Congress, Trinamool Congress and other Parties started playing politics to the detriment of the impact and the sensitivities attached because of the human factor involved? Did this melodrama not contribute towards losing its import in the din of claptrap of demonetization in the country by a few politicians and their followers? Have not within a day, the dead , the orphaned, the crippled been forgotten by those who today gave preference to their choicest wish to ask the Prime Minister to dissolve Lok Sabha and hold fresh elections ? Have the likes of one of the Honb’le Law makers who today tore papers and threw the pieces on the speaker of the Lok Sabha who happens to be a woman, not forgotten the dead , wounded, orphaned and crippled victims of this train disaster but did not hesitate to bake political loaves over it immediately after the accident? The sensitivities of the politicians were “visible in good measure” in the Parliament when the Railway Minister was giving a detailed account of the accident. Because whatever he was saying was not allowed to be audible at all due to the high pitched sloganeering in the august house.
It is worth noting that Dinesh Trivedi of the TMC who in UPA Government felt the ailing nerve of the Railways and proposed a nominal hike in the passenger fare to somewhat better some lot of the Railways was immediately de-trained by Mamta Banerjee should criticize the present Government by saying , “NDA cares more for Pizza toppings than safety measures.” The Congress not missing the opportunity to take a jibe at the PM’s dream project of Bullet Train accused him of “spoiling” the Railways forgetting that in their last 5 years rule they kept on changing the Railway Ministers, one after the other, purely on political and coalition Dharma considerations, giving to each of them little time to concentrate to address at least very urgent issues? Not to speak of reforms and bettering the lot of Railways, one Minister had to quit on job- promotion scam. Laloo Prasad did not let the opportunity slip of his hands by claiming to have touched skies and brought Railways in the position to register profits under his guidance, supervision and aegis as the Railway Minister. He perhaps conveniently forgot that Mamta Banerjee who took over from Laloo Ji discovered that her predecessor had done master window dressing in his Railways to hoodwink the public and the story beyond the hype of “Gareeb Rath” was all dismal. Laloo had then onwards forgotten to say the word “Profit” even for non Railway issues but this accident prompted him again to throw the word in the air.
It is also a fact that for the first time, Railways have “saved” money and lowered the operational cost but as per a rough estimate, it needs an amount of over Rs. 31000 crores to upkeep the strength and replacements of the worn out tracks, it needs Rs. 3250 crore for repairing of bridges, Rs. 12000 crore for track testing immediately. To increase the revenue, longer trains with added coaches and thus heavier ones are run on the old tracks causing track fracture.
Vote bank politics apart, political game playing and using Railways as a charitable institution apart, the fact that at the existing price structure of its services, the absence of funds allocation from the central budget for infrastructural development, Railways shall continue to bleed, Railways can analogically be called as the country’s iron heart which is definitely bleeding and sooner it is looked into and its ailment resolved the better for railways. Railways have to run safely, timely, speedily, punctually and on modern lines. Anil Kakodar committee recommendations were not implemented even remotely by the UPA Government after it submitted its report in Feb 2012. Out of 106 recommendations, only 22 were agreed to be implemented and a proper review needs to be taken. Likewise, Khanna Committee (1998) recommendations need to be reviewed and in terms of priority, the ones not implemented so far could be considered. Accidents due to fire, collusions and derailment etc; cannot be tolerated and safety measures are a must to be given top priority. Services provided have to be paid for with a bit of premium, no politics or freebies. Cooperation from all must be sought by the government. Call for frequent elections or Parliament logjams provide solutions neither to the nation, nor to the country, not in the least to the Railways.
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