Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu's "Mission Zero Accident", the highlight of last year's Railway Budget, seems to have made little headway given the increasing number of mishaps.
Today, over 40 passengers were injured after the Mahakaushal Express derailed in Uttar Pradesh.
Earlier this year, 41 passengers died and over 60 were injured after nine coaches of the Hirakhand Express derailed in Andhra Pradesh.
In November last year, 150 people died and over 300 were injured after 14 coaches of the Patna-Indore Express derailed near Kanpur. Though a terror angle has been suspected in some of these accidents, the claims have not been substantiated.
In fact, statistics pertaining to train accidents in the last five years reveal that one of the two leading causes of train accidents is derailment.
As per the data, from 2009-20015, there were a total of 803 accidents in Indian Railways leading to a death toll of 620 and injuries to 1855 people. Altogether 46.5% of these accidents were due to derailment of trains.
Nine out of ten railway accidents during this six-year period occurred due to derailments and accidents at level crossings.
The percentage of accidents taking place at level crossings too is a whopping 43.5 per cent with 349 accidents out of the total 803 accidents taking place at level crossings.
While the derailment of trains is generally beyond the control of the Railways, it has launched several awareness drives for its staff. The ministry is largely concentrating on bringing down the number of accidents taking place at manned level crossings (MLCs) and unmanned level crossings (ULCs).
Recently, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways had asked the ministry to provide details pertaining to the elimination of these LCs and replacing these with railway under bridges (RUBs) or railway over bridges (ROBs) wherever required.
In its response, the Ministry stated there are 19,267 MLCs and 9340 ULCs besides 6388 ULCs on broad gauge. Out of these, so far, only 1000 have been eliminated till January this year.
The expected remaining ULCs on broad gauge will be eliminated in a phased manner over the next three-year period. Similarly, till January this year, so far only 105 ROBs and 846 RUBs have been constructed since 2014-15 besides the 381 MLCs which were closed during the same period.
However, taking a critical view of this progress amid growing concerns for safety, the committee recommended, "The Ministry should meet its target on strict adherence basis as the matter of unmanned level crossings is directly connected with the safety of human life and progress in this regard should be reviewed on quarterly basis while ensuring that the targets are met within the stipulated time period".