Indian Railways commissions four track monitoring machine post CAG's red flag

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

Four new Track Recording Cars, which help in carrying out super check of train track parameters, have been commissioned after a CAG report highlighted the shortfall, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

Vaishnaw was responding to questions raised by All India Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien who asked, "Whether any action has been taken to complete inspection of railway track safety in view of CAG's observation that 50 per cent compulsory track safety inspection of railway tracks have not been completed." The Railway Minister said, "Comptroller and Auditor General's report had pointed out less inspection by Track Recording Car (TRC) during the period of study. TRC is only a means to carry out super checks of track parameters measured and monitored by permanent way gang, junior engineers, senior section engineers and tests checked at assistant divisional engineer level." "In case of non-availability of TRC, alternative means such as Oscillation Monitoring System (OMS) is used for monitoring of track. Four new TRCs have also been commissioned to carry out the inspections to ensure no shortfall in monitoring of tracks by TRCs," he said in a written reply.

Vaishnaw said the Indian Railways has a set system of scheduled inspections by railway officials which includes daily inspection by keyman and inspection/monitoring at predefined intervals by various levels of inspecting officials through on-foot, trolley, foot plate and last vehicle inspections.

"Detailed inspections are carried out by officials as per schedule stipulated in Indian Railway Permanent Way Manual (IRPWM) and entered in web enabled Track Management System (TMS) on regular basis," Vaishnaw said.

He added, "Any shortfall in inspection is reflected in the dashboard of TMS and Alerts are generated by TMS for controlling officers to take necessary preventive and corrective action." He also stated that monitoring of overall track geometry parameters is undertaken by TRCs and Oscillation Monitoring Systems (OMS) at prescribed frequency.