Rail accidents have become less frequent now, yet remain high, when it comes to India. As Moneycontrol delves deeper into train crashes, the country grapples with its deadliest derailment, that has claimed at least 288 lives and left more than 1,100 injured.
The fact is established by data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) that shows that there have been, on the average, over 23,000 fatalities every year from railway accidents between 2010 and 2021. The 68,043-km railway network in India, the fourth largest in the world after the US, China and Russia, ferries more than 3,519 million people every year.
Accidents still at a high level
India suffered 17,993 railway accidents in 2021, resulting in 16,431 deaths, shows the latest data from the annual ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India’ report released by NCRB.
This means that on the average, the country reported 49 railway accidents every day, causing at least 45 deaths. The figure for railway accidents here includes train collisions, derailments, falling off trains, collision with people on tracks and fire or explosion.
Accidents caused by passengers falling off trains or from collision with people on tracks account for the majority of railway accidents reported in India. Such accidents led to the death of as much 11,036 people in 2021, accounting for over 67 percent of the overall figure.
In 2021 alone, 88 train collisions and 21 derailments were reported, which claimed 86 and 22 lives.
Historical data shows how the number of railway accidents in India still remain distressingly high. In fact, number of such accidents along with their annual death toll saw a marginal rise in the country from 2016 to 2020, when train services were disrupted because of the pandemic.
In 2021, the number of accidents and their death toll increased from the year before by 37 percent and 38 percent as the pandemic restrictions on travel were lifted.
‘Consequential accidents’ dwindle
Although the NCRB figures show that the overall number of railway accidents remains high in the country, the number of major accidents, have declined, according to data from the Ministry of Railways.
Between 2017-18 and 2021-22, the number of ‘consequential’ train accidents declined by 53 percent. While the number of such accidents were 72 in 2017-18, it came down to 34 in 2021-22. Further, the number of deaths from such accidents went down 71 percent from 58 to 17 during this period.
Data from the Ministry of Railways also show that the number of train accidents per million kilometres, which is considered to be an important indicator of rail safety, have also gone down over the years, as shown in chart below.
Another statistic to note is that as the number of consequential train accidents have dwindled, so have the compensation given by the Ministry of Railways to the victims of accidents.
The railways spent Rs 1.88 crore on paying compensation to victims in 2017-18. This has come down 54 percent to just Rs 85.88 lakh in 2021-22.
Failure to meet safety expenditure target
The Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) is a dedicated fund created for the railways in 2017-18 with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore for five years. In 2022, upon the recommendation of NITI Aayog, the central government agreed to extend the currency of the fund for another five years.
The objective of the fund is to clear the backlog of critical safety and related works of the ministry, including track renewals, strengthening of bridges, and signalling improvements among others.
The RRSK fund is financed through the railways’ share of Central Road & Infrastructure Fund (Rs 10,000 crore), additional budgetary support (Rs 5,000 crore), and the railways’ contribution from internal resources (Rs 5,000 crore).
A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) tabled in December 2022 noted that while the Rs 15,000-crore gross budgetary support for the scheme is being met, the contribution from the internal resources of railways have fallen short over the years.
According to the CAG, this has resulted in the scheme failing to meet its objectives. “Short deployment of funds by the railways from internal resources to the tune of 15,775 crore (78.88 percent) out of the total share of 20,000 crore had defeated the primary objective of creation of RRSK to support absolute safety in the railways,” said the report.
Similar concerns were also raised in the seventh report of the Parliamentary Committee on Railways. “Such a shortfall reflects poorly on the ability of the Indian Railways to generate surpluses. The committee also feel that the railways need to address this inherent deficiency in the overall delivery mechanism and ensure that the objectives of creation of the fund is not diluted,” it said.
Shortfall in track inspections
The Indian Railways is mandated to carry out regular track inspections to assess the structural and geometrical health of tracks. For this, they use Track Recording Cars (TRC), which are automated track inspection vehicles. Each railway route has been categorised into a group based on their sanctioned speed and geography as shown in the below table. The frequency of TRC inspections on each track is based on which group it belongs to.
According to the CAG, between 2017 and 2021, nearly half of the overall required number of track inspections were not done. In fact, the shortfall in TRC track inspections ranged from 30 percent to as much as 100 percent among routes in different groups.
“Non-deployment of TRCs over planned sections, as per schedule, led to non-checking of track parameters having implications on overall safety of train operations including derailments,” said the CAG report.
Referring to the inquiry report on the derailment of Seemachal Express in 2019 in Bihar, which led to the death of six people, the CAG points out that a track inspection was due in that zone for four months at the time which could have given vital inputs for defects in the track.
The Kharagpur railway division, which saw the recent train crash, falls under the South East Railway zone. According to the CAG, the shortfall in track inspections in that zone between 2017 and 2021 was as high as 83 percent in routes falling under the ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘D Special’ groups, and 50 percent in the routes under ‘B’ group.
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