NEW DELHI: A group of people pelted the Lucknow-Gorakhpur Vande Bharat train near Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh with stones recently, to vent their ire days after the train mowed down a herd of goats. Another group, some examinees in Bihar, damaged the railway property, angry over alleged irregularities in the Non-Technical Popular Category examinations in 2022.
The coaches of over 12 trains were set on fire by unruly youths in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh protesting against the Agnipath scheme, which was not even remotely related to the railway. The list of such incidents is bigger showing how the Indian Railway is a soft target during agitations.
As a result, the Railways run into huge losses, owing to damage to property and disruptions in services, including cancellation of trains. Resorting to stone-pelting on running trains has become a common act of vandalism during agitations in the country.
“Around 4,233 incidents of stone-pelting on trains were reported by the Railways during the last three years, from 2020 to 2022,” Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Upper House of Parliament in a written reply on Friday.
According to a source, the Railways suffered losses to the tune of Rs 151 crore in 2019, Rs 904 crore in 2020, Rs 62 crore in 2021 and Rs 259.44 crore in 2022, due to agitations and other disruptions. In summary, the Indian Railways faced a whopping loss of around Rs 1,376.44 crore in the last four years.
Sources said around 60 coaches were burnt in 2022 alone during violent agitation against the Central government’s Agnipath scheme.“The losses to Railways also included damages done to railway property in the estimated overall losses in the last few years. The Railways are made a target always by agitating people for reasons not even remotely related to it. When the results of the exam are not published, the examinee's damage railway property. When goats or cattle are run over, people damage and disrupt the trains. Even when the local administrations don’t listen to people’s demands or grievances, railway property is targeted,” remarked a senior Railways official. Citing an example of how the agitation causes loss to the country’s Railways, the official said that a loss of over Rs 60 crore was incurred in 2019 just due to the Jat agitation that year.