Indian Railway needs a safety Kavach, not white elephants

With each passing day, we come to hear of one railway accident or the other, to the extent that such derailments are now becoming the norm rather than the exception. With scant accountability and the lives of common people taken largely for granted, the need of the hour is the much-touted Kavach system. But we are a long way away from seeing light at the end of this Railway tunnel.

Amid continuous railway accidents and derailments, Subhash Gupta, President of Rail Yatri Parishad, has called on the Railway Minister and the Prime Minister to prioritize the needs of common travellers over grand projects like Bullet trains and Vande Bharat trains. Gupta argued for the installation of the Kavach system on every inch of railway tracks. 

He added that recent deadly train accidents have spotlighted the anti-collision system, Kavach. The 2024-25 railway budget allocated Rs 1,112.57 crore for Kavach, a 50% increase from the interim budget. However, despite the funds, progress remains limited.

Over 1 lakh safety positions are vacant 

In the past five years, the Railways averaged 43 consequential accidents per year, with 56 passenger deaths annually between 2015 and 2022. In 2023, fatalities soared when 219 people died in a collision involving three trains in Odisha’s Balasore.

As per the data given by Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) team shows that 53% of railway accidents are due to staff errors, with 4% attributed to collisions. Track defects and inadequate maintenance are also significant factors. Approximately 1.5 lakh safety positions are vacant in the Railways. In the past five years, the Railways empanelled 3,02,550 candidates and released 9,97,638 vacancies.

The Elusive Kavach

Kavach is seen as a key solution to prevent collisions. However, based on required and allocated funds and the pace of installation, it might take decades for full implementation. Only Rs 557.96 crore was allocated for Kavach this year. So far, Rs 1,216.77 crore has been spent on Kavach, which has been deployed on 1,465 km of the South-Central Railway (around 2% of the total 68,426 km network) and on 144 of 15,200 loco engines.

45000 crores needed for covering the railway tracks with Kavach 

Questions are being raised about the speed of implementation and fund allocation. Earlier this month, TMC MP Mahua Moitra accused the government of prioritizing costly projects over passenger safety, stating that the current level of funding would take 50 years for Kavach to be installed on all routes. Approximately Rs 45,000 crore is needed for full implementation of Kavach. The cost includes Rs 50 lakh per route kilometre and Rs 70 lakh per railway engine.

Recent Train Accidents in July 2024:

• July 18: Dibrugarh Express derailed in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda, resulting in four fatalities and around 20 injuries.
• July 21: A goods train derailed near Amroha railway station, disrupting the Delhi-Lucknow rail line.
• July 24: Kanyakumari Express derailed in Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram, causing minor injuries to several passengers.