Sorry state of Indian Railways: 804 people dead in railway accidents since April 2013

Rescue workers and onlookers stand next to derailed coaches of a passenger train at the site of an accident in Khatauli, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India August 20, 2017. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi - RTS1CHXX

The Utkal Express accident, that killed over 20 people and injured 97 others in Uttar Pradesh, is the latest in a series of train accidents in India.

At least six coaches of the Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express derailed near Muzaffarnagar in UP on Saturday evening.

According to railway ministry data, accessed from Rajya Sabha replies, and Railways’ publications, there were over 450 railway accidents between 2013 and 2017. This has put the ministry under scrutiny.

As Suresh Prabhu’s tenure as railway minister started under NDA government, death toll in train accidents rose to 292 in 2014-15 compared to 152 in 2013-14. Although numbers reduced substantially in the following year to 122 (2015-16), the latest data again shows the number of deaths soaring up to 238.

Among these 459 accidents over last four years, 255 were due to derailment of train coaches. In 2016-17 alone, 193 people died in 78 derailment accidents across India.

Last year’s end was marked by one of the deadliest accidents in recent years when the Indore-Patna express train derailed near Pukhrayan area in Kanpur resulting in the death of about 150 people. Various causes, including overcrowding and fracture in the railway line, were cited as reasons behind the fatal accident.

BSP chief Mayawati had then taken a jibe at the government by saying that the accident could have been avoided if money spent on bullet train projects was put in the development of railway tracks.

The beginning of 2017 was marred by yet another fatal accident, this time in Andhra Pradesh, as the Jagdalpur-Bhubaneswar Hirakhand Express got derailed, killing around 40 people and injuring over 100.

Then in March, as many as 52 passengers were injured in Uttar Pradesh where eight bogies of Jabalpur-Nizamuddin Mahakaushal Express derailed.

The maintenance situation of Indian Railways (IR) seems grim. A white paper published by the railway ministry in February 2015 stated:

“IR’s network has 1,14,907 km of total track length. Of this, 4,500 km of track should be renewed annually. However, due to financial constraints, the progress in track renewals is constantly coming down over the last six years. As on 01.07.2014, 5,300 km track length is due for renewal. The target for the current year is only 2,100 km. Arrears of track renewal are accumulating which will result in disproportionately high maintenance effort.”

In a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question (dated Aug 11, 2017), the Minister of State for railways, Rajen Gohain, stated that 20 train accidents have taken place at unmanned level crossings, in 2016-17, wherein 40 persons have lost their lives.

March 16 saw one such accident, which killed four women including the mother of a newborn child when a train rammed into an ambulance at an unmanned level crossing in Karnataka.

Last year, the Economic Times reported that Indian Railways has a shortage of over 2 lakh employees, of which more than half the vacancies are in the safety category.