Sad, but true - Train accidents have now become very common in India. Despite Indian Railways being one of the largest networks, accidents are also occurring on a large scale. Railway Ministry has been taking many measures to curb them. By and large, we see a lot of collisions, short circuits on train and level crossing accidents have been reduced in rate. But the bothering issue is the increase in number of too many derailments. A recent study shows that 75% of the accidents occurred in trains are due to derailing, which is the highest in the past 14 years.
Recently, a major derailment has happened in Uttar Pradesh which killed more than 20 people. This is the fourth major train accident that happened in that state this year. While talking about the issue the government blamed the driver for his careless driving. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has offered to resign from his post today, taking full responsibility for the unfortunate events. But the sad state of the state’s railways shouldn’t be given a deaf ear. The state-run system operates 9,000 passenger trains and carries some 23 million passengers every day. So, at least now these accidents should be taken seriously and proper measures are to be followed to curb them in the future.
These accidents majorly occur due to sheer negligence and improper maintaining of the tracks and engines. Modernisation of railways is one of the main promises of the government but investment remains a concern. The government launched the additional safety overhaul programme in February to tackle a surge in train accidents in the past two years blamed on defective tracks. The maintenance should also be in such a way that it can cope up with the increasing demand. Staff and station masters should be equipped to tackle and respond quickly in the time of emergencies.
In a country with one of largest Railway networks, it is a sad thing that the major reason behind train crashes is our lack of maintaining the already built system properly. There’s no use of lamenting about the incident after it has happened.
