NEW DELHI: With focus on improving railway safety in the wake of rising incidents of train derailments, the Ministry of Railways has decided to have a dedicated sanctioned strength of safety staff. There will be 18 safety-related positions in each of the 17 zonal headquarters and 14 positions in each of the 73 railway divisions. These include safety counsellors, chief safety officer and safety officers, among others.
The decision follows a recommendation by a task force constituted by the ministry to suggest systems and processes to improve the safety performance of Indian Railways. The Railway Board has considered the recommendation and decided that “provisions of non-gazetted staff can be made by the zonal railways, based on work load, and approved by the general managers”.
The Board further said that zonal railways might review the existing staff strength in safety department at zonal and divisional level.
According to the railway ministry, about seven lakh employees work on safety related operations to ensure that 23 million passengers are carried every day across the length and breadth of the country. But there is still a huge vacancy of nearly one lakh in safety-related positions and the ministry has already started recruitments.