Railways sees record drop in accidents, just 11 incidents this year: Vaishnaw in Rajya Sabha

The Indian Railways has touched its “highest-ever benchmark of rail safety”, with consequential train accidents falling from an annual average of 171 between 2004 and 2014 to just 11 so far in 2025-26, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

In a detailed reply, Vaishnaw said the sharp decline was backed by a multi-fold rise in safety spending, massive technological upgrades, faster investigations into sabotage attempts and closer coordination with state police and central agencies.

The minister said the safety budget has nearly tripled over the past decade, from Rs 39,463 crore in 2013–14 to Rs 1,16,470 crore in the current fiscal, enabling Indian Railways to overhaul ageing assets, ramp up surveillance and strengthen frontline infrastructure. He highlighted a dramatic leap in fog protection systems, noting that Fog Safety Devices have surged “288 times”, from just 90 in 2014 to 25,939 in 2025. Centralised electronic interlocking and complete track-circuiting, he added, have been commissioned at 21 stations each in the last four months alone.

Vaishnaw told the House that passenger safety remains the top priority, and that every unusual incident is investigated thoroughly. While technical reasons are examined by the Railways, cases with suspicion of criminal activity are handed to state police, in line with constitutional provisions. Where required, the CBI and NIA join the probe. All sabotage or track-tampering cases reported in 2023 and 2024 have been registered by state police and Government Railway Police, leading to arrests and prosecution, he said.

To prevent such incidents, the minister outlined a coordinated security plan involving RPF, GRP and civil police. Black spots and vulnerable stretches are patrolled jointly; special teams monitor high-risk areas; and regular drives remove materials placed near tracks. Local communities living alongside tracks are being sensitised about the dangers of placing foreign objects on rail lines. State-level security committee meetings, headed by state police chiefs, now review intelligence, law and order issues and sabotage threats more frequently.

According to the figures placed before Parliament, consequential train accidents have reduced from 135 in 2014-15 to 31 in 2024-25, and further down to 11 so far this year till November. The Railways attributes this to a decade of aggressive modernisation, including electronic interlocking at 6,656 stations, interlocked gates at 10,098 level-crossings, and complete track-circuiting at 6,661 stations.

The upgrade of the anti-collision system Kavach has also accelerated after Version 4.0 was cleared by RDSO in July 2024. It has now been successfully commissioned on key stretches of the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes, and work is under way on all remaining Golden Quadrilateral, Diagonal and High-Density routes covering 15,512 route-km.

The reply shows significant improvements in maintenance practices: primary rail renewals have risen to nearly 50,000 track-km in the past decade, USFD testing of welds has more than doubled, weld failures have dropped by 90 per cent and rail fractures by over 88 per cent. Infrastructure expansion has more than doubled the pace of new track addition, tripled the number of road overbridges and underpasses, and eliminated all unmanned level crossings on broad-gauge routes by January 2019. LHB coach production has risen more than eighteen-fold.

In signalling, rolling stock, track structure, bridge safety, fog operations and fire detection, the minister said, Indian Railways has introduced multiple standardised protocols, stricter inspections, and long-term rolling block maintenance to ensure safer operations.

Vaishnaw said these advances, supported by better intelligence, mechanisation, longer rails, improved welding, vigilance systems and modern monitoring tools, have collectively contributed to the rail network recording one of its safest years ever.