Editorial: Yet another tragedy on tracks

The series of train mishaps raises questions over the pace of adoption of anti-collision technology — Kavach

There is always a sense of déjà vu surrounding train accidents in India that occur with depressing regularity, followed by ritualistic announcements of compensation and inquiry. The death toll is eventually reduced to cold statistics and then it becomes business as usual. Another disastrous rail collision, this time in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district involving two passenger trains, has left 13 passengers dead and several injured. The collisions between trains, derailment of compartments, helpless passengers trapped in coaches and succumbing to fate: this is becoming a disgustingly repetitive trope. Such tragedies expose the flaws in railway safety systems. The latest tragedy is being attributed to human error as the driver of the Visakhapatnam-Ragada passenger train missed a red signal and hit the rear end of the Visakhapatnam-Palasa train at Kantakapalli, leading to the derailment of five coaches. This comes months after the Balasore mishap, one of the worst in India’s history, that had claimed over 290 lives. Earlier this month, five people were killed after 23 coaches of the North East Express derailed near Raghunathpur station in Bihar’s Buxar. What is more disturbing is that the authorities fail to learn any lessons from the previous tragedies. Despite the efforts of modernisation and automation in running trains, mishaps have kept the public worried about rail safety. The Odisha accident, which involved the collision of three trains, was due to a signalling malfunction. The series of train mishaps raise questions over the pace of adoption of anti-collision technology — Kavach — by the Indian Railways.

This Automatic Railway Protection (ARP) system was unveiled in 2012 but its adoption has been excruciatingly slow due to inadequate funding over the years. So far, only 1,445 km stretch has been fitted with the ARP and work is on to cover another 3,000 km. The allocation for the Kavach system in the 2023-24 Budget was around Rs 1,000 crore, covering the Delhi-Mumbai route. Given the total length of 1.08 lakh km, it will take 30 to 40 years for the railways to cover the entire country. Being the fourth largest network in the world, the Railways carry nearly 23 million passengers a day by over 13,600 trains. A majority of the accidents could have been averted if the Railways had paid enough attention to upgrading its infrastructure such as tracks and signalling and inducting technologies that help prevent accidents. Derailments account for more than half of the rail mishaps, with civil engineering defects being the main culprit. Tracks are often old, overused and maintenance of infrastructure is shoddy. The Anil Kakodkar committee, set up in 2011 to review rail safety, painted a grim picture of performance and recommended upgrading tracks, repairing bridges, eliminating level crossings and replacing old coaches with safer ones. These measures would cost Rs 1 lakh crore over a period of five years to improve safety and overhaul railway infrastructure.