NEW DELHI: The Amritsar train accident in which 59 people were killed raises concerns over the possibility of similar tragedies as thousands of people have encroached upon railway land and live perilously close to the tracks. To add to the problem, trespassing continues to be the biggest killer on railway tracks with nearly 50,000 people being killed in the last three years. Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani blamed trespassing as the reason behind the Amritsar accident that took place on Friday night when people were watching Ravan Dahan.
Data shows that a total of 861.70 hectare of land is encroached since 1950 and 1,13,920 cases of encroachments are registered with 16 zonal railways. Railway authorities carry out eviction drives from time to time but the progress during 2015-2017 was at a negligible rate of 2 per cent.
Any construction near railway land is governed by the Indian Railways Works Manual and an open space of 30 meters is required between the railway land boundary and the nearest edge of the building. But it is an open secret that permanent structures and shanties have come up along tracks near a majority of railway stations across the country.
There is a requirement of about 3,455 km of boundary wall costing about `2,796 crore to protect railway land at vulnerable locations. To meet the huge requirement of boundary walls, funds from the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh is being used to build walls to isolate the track from the surrounding areas. A part of the 3,455-km wall will be constructed through this fund but the Railways is yet to provide details about the project.
“We were able to bring down the area under encroachment on its land from 930 hectares in 2014-15 to 844 Ha in February 2018,” a top railway officer said. Poor land management is a major reason behind the encroachment, with some zonal railways not maintaining proper land records.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), in its report tabled in the Lok Sabha in August, pulled up the Railways for failing to categorize encroached land. “The committee views with disapproval the failure of Railways in dealing with the matter with firmness. Such propitious action would not only help Railways in deft management of vacant land but would also obviate encroachments in future,” noted the PAC.