COIMBATORE: The failure on the part of Uthukuli station master Mukesh Kumar in supervising the clamping activities led to the arrival of two trains on the same track on July 5 at Uthukuli station in Thirupur, says the report submitted by Southern Railway Chief Security Officer G V L Sathya Kumar to Southern Railway General Manger, on Friday.
In the wake of this finding, the Southern Railway plans to have a biometric system to ensure that similar mistakes shall not occur in future. Besides, a safety drive is being planned to escalate the level of supervision by its employees.
The report states that as per the safety rules of the Railway, the station master must examine each and every activity by being on the spot, but the Uthukuli station master failed to do so when the clamping was erroneously done after the failure of the automatic system.
“The Indian Railways has a trustworthy automatic signal system. Only when the automatic system fails, manual work is needed and to ensure the manual work accident free, railways has made a double safety mechanism. According to this, each mechanism has to be monitored by two people and only when the two people make a mistake simultaneously, an accident can happen,” said Sathya Kumar in his report.
The station master is the third eye and he has to monitor the functioning by being on the spot, he added.