“A question arose in my mind – Hey Prabhu, how will this happen? God didn’t answer…”

~ Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu

Prabhu said these words in February 2015 while delivering the Railway Budget speech less than a year after he occupied the position. His words hold even more significance after the Utkal Express derailment on Saturday because it seems like the Railway Ministry is completely functioning on pure faith in Prabhu.

Within hours after the accident — pained by the deaths of innocent passengers, I’m sure — the usual suspects came forward and tried to find someone to blame.

My heart reaches out to these people who are desperately trying to find answers as to who was responsible for the tragic incident. Reports soon started streaming in that the accident was caused by pure human negligence. Fifteen meters of the track had been taken off and was being replaced and the driver of the train wasn’t informed. When the train approached, the workers ran for their lives and left their equipment on the tracks. Those tools were found later under one of the coaches.

That’s the short version of what happened. But the problem goes deeper than that. Way back in March 2015, while replying to a debate on the Railway Budget, our Railway Minister said:

So, acknowledging those words, I’m going to do exactly that and hold him and his Ministry responsible for the Utkal Express derailment. Let us look at the performance of the Railway Ministry and try to identify a few deeper causes, which underlie this horrific incident.

Data from the past

If you look at the figures above, the total number of accidents seem to have gone down over the past 10 years (as they should!). Yet, the devil is in the details because if you notice the accidents owing to derailments, they have actually gone back to 2010 levels. In 2015-16, there have been 78 accidents owing to derailments. One of them being the deadly Indore-Patna express derailment in Kanpur, which led to 142 deaths and over 200 injured.

It’s quite clear that accidents because of derailments have shot up by leaps and bounds. Take a look at this data provided in Rajya Sabha, which shows that 2016-17 had the highest percentage of derailments in the last 10 years!

(Source: Rajya Sabha, Unstarred question no. 3473, Answered on 31.03.2017)

Seventy-six per cent! And that is not taking into account accidents in the month of March 2017. Although the unmanned crossing accidents have significantly gone down, there is no getting away from the fact that the Railway Ministry has been ineffective in dealing with derailments.

Maintenance of tracks

Media reports suggest that a whole track was removed for maintenance work when the accident took place. The driver wasn’t informed beforehand that such works are going on. HOW in the world is that possible?

Track maintenance is a regular activity that the Indian Railways does to keep tracks in top shape.

Such maintenance works are planned in advance. Workers don’t randomly, based on a whim, start replacing tracks.

Going back to the same answer in Rajya Sabha:

So if these works are planned in advance, how did this accident happen? One possible reason might be lack of resources.

The Indian Railways employs about 2 lakh people to maintain a mind-boggling 1,15,000 km of track. These ‘trackmen’ set out every morning with a 15 kg gear on their backs to do their jobs, which is to identify flaws in tracks and also maintain them, sometimes replace them. Reports indicate that 300 of them die on average every year because they are working on tracks with trains plying on them constantly.

Minister Prabhu launched a Track Management System (TMS) to keep a round-the-clock eye on maintenance of tracks. Harnessing technology is one good way of reducing the burden (literally) on these trackmen.

But but but… there seems to be a problem there too. After the Patna Express derailment last year, the Pioneer reported that TMS is still denied to the safety wing.

“… the monitoring mechanism becomes a closely guarded secret defeating the very purpose of the launching of the software application,” said a railway official.

A Safety Fund ‘Jumla’?

In December 2016, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways recommended that a special non-lapsable fund needs to be created geared towards Railway Safety. Following which the Railway Ministry created a fund called ‘Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh’ (RRSK) and allocated Rs 1 lakh crore in the 2017 Budget. This money is supposed to be spent over a period of five years on track renewals/safety, strengthening of bridges, elimination of unmanned level crossings, upgradation of maintenance facilities and signaling improvement.

After this fund was created, the Committee investigated and found that there was some ‘jugglery of finances’ happening here. Their words, not mine.

The Committee said that out of the Rs 20,000 crore allocated for this year (2017-18), ₹5,000 crore has been put in from Budgetary support, ₹10,000 from Railway Safety Fund (Railway’s share out of the Central Road Fund), ₹4,000 crore from Depreciation Reserve Fund and remaining ₹1,000 crore from Revenue surplus.

What this means is a ‘special non-lapsable allocation’ was never fully made. The new funds allocated amount to only ₹6,000 crore. The rest was just transferred from two other funds (that is, Central Road Fund and Depreciation Reserve Fund).

The committee said this is “not a matter of financial prudence but jugglery of finances.” Again, their words, not mine. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether the Railway Ministry is actually serious about Railway safety if they are indulging in such ‘suspicious behaviour’. Yeah. Those are my words.

Mischief angle?

I started off this piece by pointing out that a bunch of people held a belief that there was some foul-play involved in this accident. That there was a terrorist lurking around waiting to detach railway tracks so that this accident happens. Let’s take into consideration that angle as well and talk about the Railway Protection Force (RPF).

The primary job of the RPF is to protecting railway passengers, passenger area and railway property (including tracks). They are the first task-force that is supposed to respond when suspicious activities are noticed. Guess what, even that force is in a not-exactly-perfect condition.

A report by the Committee on Railways (presented on August 3, 2017) points out that there is a vacancy of 1.2 lakh safety personnel as of April last year.

In the RPF itself, there are 7,000 posts still vacant. The Committee was very ‘dismayed’.

Even after the Ministry of Railways gave a response saying that they have initiated and hastened the process of recruitment, that a process has been initiated for recruitment for 2,030 women constables, 4,220 male constables and 160 Sub Inspectors, the Committee did not exactly have kind words on the development.

Even a senior ministry official told Hindustan Times the same thing last year: “Somewhere along the line, routine safety drills have taken a backseat and the 1 lakh-odd vacancies in the safety category have remained.”

Looks like the situation has *still* not improved despite 142 persons losing their lives in Kanpur last year.

Final words

People can fight over which Minister was a better Railway Minister, who did the best job and who didn’t, but let us simply admit that the current Ministry of Railways (I’m saying MINISTRY and not MINISTER), is not doing a good job of Railway Safety.

There is ample proof of their ‘tardy pace’ and ‘jugglery of finances’. Their words, not mine.

There is ample data of how derailment accidents have shot up to unreal levels in the past two years. Their data, not mine.

And yet, if we don’t hold the Railway Ministry accountable, who exactly do we expect to fix this mess ffs?

Oh wait…I know who!

Hey Prabhu, please save us…or resign!

Note: The infographic accompanying the article has been corrected to reflect Suresh Prabhu’s term as rail minister from November 10, 2014. The earlier graphic had data from early 2014. The error is regretted.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @Memeghnad.

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