Folks stroll previous the positioning of the practice accident in Odisha’s Balasore district on June 3, 2023.
| Photograph Credit score: AP
The Comptroller and Auditor Normal of India (CAG), in its 2022 report on “Derailments in Indian Railways”, had flagged a number of shortcomings and made a number of suggestions, which included the suggestion to make sure strict adherence to the scheduled timelines for conducting and finalising accident inquiries.
The cases talked about within the report had been these which got here to the CAG’s consideration in the middle of the check audit for the interval April 2017 to March 2021, in addition to these, which had come to its discover in earlier years, however couldn’t be reported within the earlier audit reviews.
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The main target of the audit was to determine whether or not measures to stop derailments and collisions had been clearly laid down and applied by the Ministry of Railways. The auditors discovered that there have been shortfalls starting from 30-100% in inspections by observe recording automobiles and idling of observe machines owing to numerous causes.
Highlighting the importance of well timed inquiries, the report stated that its principal goal was to determine the reason for an accident and to formulate proposals for stopping their incidence. “Within the course of it’s ascertained if any inherent defect exists within the system of working or within the bodily home equipment, akin to, tracks, rolling inventory and different working equipment. Measures for rectifying the defects and irregularities are then proposed primarily based on the findings, it stated.
“Evaluation of 1129 ‘Inquiry Studies’ of derailment accidents in 16 Zonal Railways (ZRs) revealed 24 components liable for derailments within the chosen instances/accidents. The full damages/lack of belongings in these instances was reported as ₹32.96 crore,” stated the report.
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Whereas complete 422 derailments had been attributable to the Engineering Division, the foremost issue liable for derailment was associated to “upkeep of observe” (171 instances), adopted by “deviation of observe parameters past permissible limits” (156 instances). In all, 182 derailments had been attributable to the Mechanical Division and there have been 154 accidents attributable to the loco pilots. “Dangerous driving/over dashing” was additionally a key issue.
The variety of accidents attributable to the Working Division was 275 and “incorrect setting of factors and different errors in shunting operations” accounted for 84%. Of the 1,127 derailments throughout 2017-21, 289 had been linked to trace renewals.
The report had stated that in 63% instances, the inquiry reviews weren’t submitted to the accepting authority throughout the prescribed time schedule and in 49% instances, there was a delay within the acceptance of the reviews by authorities. Apart from, the general expenditure on Precedence-I works from the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) confirmed a declining pattern from 81.55% in 2017-18 to 73.76% in 2019-20. The allotment of funds for observe renewal works additionally went down from ₹9,607.65 crore (2018-19) to ₹7,417 crore in 2019-20. The funds weren’t absolutely utilised.
Based mostly on its findings, the CAG had really useful growth of a robust monitoring mechanism to make sure well timed implementation of upkeep actions by adopting absolutely mechanised strategies of observe upkeep and improved applied sciences.
“Railway Administration should observe the ‘guiding rules for deployment of RRSK funds’ to keep away from fund constraints within the space of Precedence-I works. IR [Indian Railway] might put together the ‘Detailed Consequence Framework’ for every merchandise of security work as per the indicative outcomes to gauge whether or not the advantages derived out of the RRSK funds are in conformity with the targets behind the creation of the fund,” it had stated.
