Report of Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent
The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), an independent body reporting to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India, submitted its preliminary report on 11th July 2024, of the causes of the Kanchenjunga Train collision which occurred in West Bengal on June 17, 2024. This collision resulted in the death of 15 people and many were seriously injured. The Commission stated that what happened on June 17th 2024 was “AN- ACCIDENT- IN – WAITING”.
It completely debunked the claim of the Chairman and CEO of the Railway Board, who accused the deceased loco pilot of the goods train immediately after the accident even before the CRS gave its report.
The report said improper instructions along with inadequate counselling of train running and operations staff was one of the reasons of the accident.
The CRS said there is an urgent need to overhaul train operations across Indian Railways to prevent such accidents from recurring. It also said that frequent malfunctioning of automatic signalling was defeating the purpose of deploying the mechanism.
The probe found that inadequate permissions were issued to loco pilots on accident day. Crucial instructions such as enforcing speed limits on trains were not explicitly stated while allowing movement on routes where automatic signalling had failed.
It said that there was inadequate counselling of loco pilots and station masters about train operations in automatic signalling territory, creating misinterpretation and misunderstanding of rules.
Besides, the CRS said that the large number of failures in automatic signalling was a cause of concern, and that it should be taken up with the Railways Development and Standards Organisation (RDSO) and equipment suppliers to improve the reliability of these systems.
The CRS report reveals the adverse effects of down-sizing of staff in safety categories. None of the staff were aware of the correct procedure to be followed in case of a signal failure. This situation was created by deputing staff to work in the automatic block section without proper training because of the acute shortage of staff.
As per the Railway Board instructions, there shall be a Senior Section Engineer, a Junior Engineer and a helper in the control office of the signal department. But due to the acute shortage of staff there was only one technician posted on the day of the accident. More contractualisation in construction of signal equipment, track, rolling stock including locomotives results in more failures.
Average signal failures numbering about 20 in a month is the result of contractualisation.
In this situation, the employees are unable to follow safety rules and the higher railway authorities mercilessly penalise the running and operations staff for all the accidents whereas the real causes are systemic.
In spite of numerous reports appearing after every accident, the high railway officials refuse to take corrective action to overhaul the entire operating system resulting in frequent recurrence of terrible accidents leading to loss of precious lives and property.
The Railway Board and Railway Ministry must be held accountable for these accidents resulting in loss of lives and public property.