Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday assured the Lok Sabha that the government was implementing several major steps to improve passenger safety, including coverage of entire rail network by anti-collision device Kavach, renewal of worn-out tracks by high-quality rails and introduction of India-designed accident-safe LHB coaches.

He was replying to a debate on the railway allocations in the general Budget. The Opposition staged a walk-out protesting the Minister was not responding to their queries during his one-hour reply.

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The Railway Minister said the yearly accident rate in the Indian Railways had fallen. There used to be 171 accidents every year during the UPA rule and the number had fallen by 68 per cent.

He said the 12 lakh employees of the railways are working day and night to serve the two crore passengers who travel on the Indian railways every day. The Congress was only trying to show the railways in bad light, he said.

Responding to members’ remarks during the debate, Mr Vaishnaw said the Kavach device installation began in the European railways in the Seventies and it was completed during the Eighties and the Nineties. The device was meant to help drivers who could miss signals because of the ever-increasing speed of the trains.

The Minister said during the 58 years of the Congress rule there was no focus on the railways and there were only experiments with the device, and in 2014 when the Narendra Modi government took over, Kavach was nowhere installed.

The Kavach was installed on 1500 kilometers in 2006 but the UPA government did not obtain the required certification. In 2012, it was declared failed and abandoned, the Minister said.

The BJP Government started the Kavach trials in 2016 and the certificate was obtained 2019. In the subsequent few years, it was installed on 3000 kilometers, and work continued even during Covid.

Mr Vaishnaw said the railways’ Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO) approved the Kavach Version 4.0 on 17th July, 2024 and three manufacturers had come forward for its manufacture and another two are expected to join soon.

He said tenders are in process for installation of the device on 9,000 kms of track and on 10,000 locomotives. He said countries with half of India’s 70,000 kms network had taken 20 years to complete the installation.

The Minister assured the House that the Kavach roll-out will not be given up and every kilometre of the tracks will be covered.

Among other steps on safety, he said there is no unmanned railway crossing in the country today, against 9,000 in 2019. In the 10 years of the NDA rule, 2964 railway stations have been covered with electronic inter-locking systems. There are 8,000 railway stations in the country and work is on in mission mode to cover the rest of the stations. During the UPA rule only 837 stations were covered by this system.

Track failure was another cause for accidents. During the 10 years of the BJP-NDA rule, 43,000 kms new high quality rails were installed against the 32,000 kms during the UPA rule. Ultra-sonic fault detection tests are being taken. There used to be 2500 rail fractures during the UPA rule and its number has come down to 383 now.

The railways are introducing the accident-safe LHB coaches. While just 2300 LHB coaches were manufactured during the UPA rule, 37,000 LHB coaches have been manufactured during the NDA government’s tenure. India is now designing them locally also, he said.

The Railway Minister said the expenditure on railway safety was Rs 87,336 crore in 2022-23; Rs 98,414 crore in 2023-24 and Rs 1,08,795 crore has been provided for 2024-25.

The Minister said the government proposed to introduce regional trains Vande Metro between major cities which are close to each other. For long distances, Vande Sleeper trains will be started. Mr Vaishnaw said there was no discrimination in the introduction of rail services and over 100 Vande Bharat trains are in operation.

The Minister said the Indian Railways has two-third of its coaches general and sleeper category coaches and one–third are airconditioned. Steps are being to increase the share of the general coaches to serve the common man. There will be four general coaches in every Mail and Express train soon. Work has started on the manufacture of 10,000 general coaches.

The Minister said two Amrit Bharat trains were started and another 50 Amrit Bharat trains will be introduced. These trains have just sleeper and general coaches in equal numbers. Electrification is progressing fast, he said.

He said the railways recruited 5.2 lakh employees during the BJP rule against 4.11 lakh during the UPA’s 10 years’ rule