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New Delhi : Indian Railways have taken several key measures as a result of which the number of train accidents have decreased from 118 in 2013-14 to 104 in 2016-17, to 73 in 2017-18 and further to 59 in 2018-19.
These are the lowest ever figures in the history of Indian Railways. Safety has been accorded the highest priority by Indian Railways and all possible steps are undertaken on a continual basis to prevent accidents and to enhance safety of passengers. Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) was introduced in 2017-18 for replacement/renewal/upgradation of critical safety assets with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore for five years, having annual outlay of Rs 20,000 crore.
Indian Railways has already adopted the technological upgradation in safety aspects of coaches and wagons by way of introducing Modified Centre Buffer Couplers, Bogie Mounted Air Brake System (BMBS), improved suspension design and provision of Automatic fire & smoke detection system in coaches. These modifications are being provided in newly manufactured coaches and wagons on a regular basis. Conventional ICF design coaches being replaced with LHB design coaches of Mail/Express trains in phased manner.
This information was given by Railways and Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on June 26, 2019, according to a PIB release.
A GPS based Fog Pass device is being provided to loco pilots in fog affected areas which enables loco pilots to know the exact distance of the approaching landmarks like signals, level crossing gates etc besides introduction of Ultrasonic Flaw Detection (USFD) testing of rails to detect flaws and timely removal of defective rails.
Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) based on European Technology ETCS Level-1, a proven Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System to avoid train accident /collision on account of human error of Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD) or over speeding, has been provided on 1. Noapara – Kavi Subhash section of Kolkata Metro (28 RKMs) (ii) Chennai – Gumidipundi suburban section of Southern Railway (50 RKMs), Basin Bridge – Arrakkonam section of Southern Railway (67 RKMs) (iii) Hazrat Nizamuddin – Agra section of Northern/North Central Railway (200 RKMs).