Safety on Railways (IR) dominates TV debates and media narratives each time there’s a main mishap. Nonetheless, with no main railway accident in current months — barring the unlucky stampede at New Delhi railway station on February 15 —that is the time to rise above the din and relook at railway safety.
At any time when railway safety turns into a burning situation, critics declare IR prioritises optics over safety, whereas the federal government alleges sabotage by exterior enemies. Each narratives miss the mark. Whereas accidents have declined, the sabotage principle, citing occasional obstructions on tracks, was by no means convincing as most instances had been too trivial to trigger a derailment. I’ve all the time maintained that whereas companies examine, leaping to conclusions solely spreads panic.
A few current railway safety developments went unnoticed. First, the Commissioner of Railway Safety, NE Railway, held IR’s engineering division liable for the Chandigarh-Dibrugarh Specific derailment in Gonda on July 18, 2024, which claimed 4 lives. IR had earlier tried to attribute this accident to suspected sabotage, regardless of a lack of any telltale indicators. On condition that investigative companies, together with the NIA, haven’t discovered sabotage in a number of instances they had been engaged in, IR should cease searching for a sabotage excuse as an alternative of addressing root causes and taking corrective measures.
Dedication to safety
Second, within the Higher Home debate on the Railways (Modification) Invoice 2024, Railway Minister Vaishnaw highlighted the federal government’s dedication to safety, citing an annual funding of over ₹1 lakh crore and a dramatic drop in railway accidents — from 171 to only 30 within the final decade. Whereas critics in opposition argue in any other case, the downward pattern in accidents and fatalities is plain.
This enchancment shouldn’t be solely as a result of present authorities however on account of a long time of centered work: eliminating unmanned degree crossings, enhancing observe upkeep and renewal, upgrading signalling methods, and changing outdated coaches with safer LHB fashions. It is usually acceptable that the huge capital expenditure since 2014 has certainly accelerated these enhancements. Larger budgets for observe, signalling, and rolling inventory will certainly improve safety incrementally, however what about quantum leaps? One such measure is the Kavach signalling system. Parliament was knowledgeable that IR has been refining Kavach since 2016, resulting in the ultimate approval of Model 4 in July 2024. It was said that 15,000 km of observe might be outfitted with Kavach in 5 years. However regardless of a high-profile trial greater than three years in the past in media glare, not a single kilometre has been added past the prevailing 1,448 km within the Secunderabad space.
IR unexpectedly latched onto the Commissioner of Railway Safety’s suggestion following the Vizianagaram accident on October 29, 2023, which left 17 useless and 34 injured. The advice was to equip all locomotives with Kavach, even in non-Kavach territory, to enhance safety by means of its non-signalling anti-collision function. The spirit behind this was to maintain locomotives in readiness pending floor installations, though equipping the locomotive alone doesn’t unleash the complete potential of Kavach.
But, IR is pushing forward with fitment on locomotives alone at an estimated price of ₹8,000 crore, whereas progress on important floor installations — telecom towers, management panels, optical fibre cables, RFID tags — stays excruciatingly sluggish. Work has dragged on for years on the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors.
One other essential imaginative and prescient for IR’s safety should contain synthetic intelligence (AI). Can India lead the world in AI-driven rail safety? With our huge expert manpower within the space, this management is inside the realm of risk. IR has, nonetheless, been dabbling with AI-based purposes for CCTV surveillance, crowd management, and passenger facilities, whereas bafflingly neglecting improvement of AI-enabled instruments for real-time safety interventions.
Given the impossibility of manually analysing the huge digital information from station loggers and locomotive/practice microprocessors, AI is inevitable for real-time collation and evaluation.
If IR is critical about attaining near-zero accidents, these two areas — Kavach’s full deployment and AI integration — have to be its prime priorities.
The author is Retd. GM Indian Railways and Impartial Rail Advisor
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