The true dynamics of any Constitutional document with a strong democratic base emerge only after decades of usage of the provisions by institutional authorities and people at large. Within a couple of years, the Constitution of India, the legally-binding and operative document that sanctifies the principles of democratic administration, shall also complete seven decades of its existence.
Hopefully, the august occasion on January 26, 2020, would render an occasion to Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, as well as jurists in India and outside, to conduct a due diligence of relevant Constitutional provisions regarding safety and security of people engaged in the ordinary business of life.
The sanctimonious subject of rail safety is an important segment that needs an examination in the above context considering that Railways, mentioned in the Seventh Schedule’s Article 246’s subsection 22 of the Union List, is a priority of the Union government. A circumspect examination of the provision should be based on new methodologies of defining rail safety in the overall Constitutional parlance. It should adopt a more inclusive perspective of bringing onboard the state governments in track-maintenance and track safety endeavours in the vast network of railways.
The raison d’etre of bringing rail safety into the List III of Article 246 signifying the Concurrent List, is not premised on any singular safety failure on our rail tracks. It is conceived more on the imperative for more effective management of the safety mechanics and a diligent scrutiny of prevailing rail safety practices across the vast terrain of tracks, and other vital and connected operational devices and rail-ware.In the past five years, 586 accidents related to Railways were reported. These unfortunate occurrences, despite the best of Union government’s efforts, cumulatively indicate serial gaps in rail safety in the Indian Railways.
Given the disparate nature of the Railways network and the variances of topography, weather factor, traffic intensity, multiple sub-control paradigms, sensitive bridging infrastructure over major rivers, small and major stations, high-competing shares of passengers and freight carriage, and diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds of its employees, the time may have arrived to decentralise both the apex-executive staffing and operations of the Railway Board. To make the board more effective, a due diligence exercise could be undertaken on whether five Subsidiary Railway Boards (for Northern, Eastern, Western, Central and Southern segments) would add to the efficacy of operations, efficacy and safety dimensions.
Rail safety is indeed a national priority. An occasional major accident virtually brings heightened tensions all across the country. Each accident is assessed and analysed in depth and detail at the official and people’s levels. Often, immediate reactions tantamount to premature assessments of a given event. Predictably, the Ministry of Railways invariably gets hauled over the coals for ‘government’s lackadaisical approach to the issue of passenger safety’.
Actually, human errors at the ‘base level’ of the mammoth public transporter tend to override technical and safety parameters conveyed routinely through reasoned circulars. There is perhaps a culture of negligence, too, that creeps in while dealing with the subject of effective implementation of recommendations of various expert committees that have gone into the causes of rail accidents in the past. This particular dimension is ignored by and large, prompting questions in turn whether India possesses a National Safety Calculus (NSC). If an NSC was operative, a Rail Safety Calculus could be made feasible even at state-level though railways is a core central subject.
Started by the British in 1853 and initially run by independent companies, the railway network was later taken over by the government and grew rapidly, covering 9,000 miles by 1880. After Independence, it was maintained as a state-run organisation. Today, Indian Railways employs more than 1.54 million people and traverses over 63,000 km of its routes. Even with increases in revenue from passenger travel and freight transport, overall development dynamic has stayed dormant.
According to estimations made, given the magnitude of its network and the passengers it carries every day, greater augmentation of safety procedures could have been feasible. To this day, 17,000 unmanned railway crossings exist that are said to cause nearly 70 per cent of the fatalities. The dimension of challenge amidst a series of constraints to ensure the safety of 13-plus million passengers is one of paramount importance. Hopefully, a number of technologically-innovative steps that have been taken would soon instil a sense of confidence among rail users for whom Indian Railways is a life-line. A special `1 lakh crore railway safety fund—set up to mend decaying tracks, repair bridges and to introduce safety measures—would help revitalise the network’s overall safety and performance narrative soon enough.
Mohan Das Menon
Former additional secretary, Cabinet Secretariat
mdmenonconsulting@gmail.com