NEW DELHI: Recent years have seen a troubling trend in the Indian Railways. While the frequency of consequential train accidents has significantly declined, the financial and material damages continue to mount.
There has been a dramatic drop in accidents — from 1,711 in the years between 2004-05 and 2013-14 to just 678 between 2014-15 and 2023-24.
The railway data, accessed by this newspaper, highlights that despite the decrease in accidents, the damage to railway property, including rolling stock, tracks, and other infrastructure incurred a cost running into over `300 crore.
Railway officials admitted that the Indian Railway network, which is one of the largest in the world, faces significant challenges now in balancing safety, operational efficiency, and financial stability.
According to official data, 748 deaths from 678 consequential train accidents were reported during 2015-24 and 2,087 passengers were injured during this period. This is against 904 deaths from 1,711 consequential train accidents with 3,155 injuries during 2005-14.
According to data, the total cost of damage to railway property such as rolling stock, tracks and other infrastructure due to consequential accidents during the last five years stood at `313 crore, including `150 crore in the last one year.
“Even during the few months of the current financial year, derailments and consequential accidents have damaged properties worth `150 crore as dozens of coaches were damaged,” said an official, adding that massive safety steps for safety in operations are in the place.
“All locomotives are now equipped with Vigilance Control Devices (VCD) to improve alertness of loco pilots to avoid oversight, which generally lead to accidents,” said a railway official, adding that railways is using ultrasonic flaw detection testing of the rails to detect flaws and timely removal of defective rails.
He said that fitment of VCDs as a technological aid to alert loco pilots has been done since 2014 in more than 12,000 (10,521 electric and 1,873 diesel) locomotives.