Erring train drivers and signalmen responsible for 204 deaths in 2021: NCRB report

Shubhadeep Choudhury                                                                                                 

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New Delhi, September 1

2021 was a bad year for locomotive drivers.

During the year, as many as 118 people died in 118 railway accidents, the reasons for which have been described as “fault of driver” in the National Crime Record Bureau report released recently.

Erring drivers were not held responsible for so many deaths in the four previous years. In 2020, 23 cases of train accidents owing to the fault of drivers were reported in which 21 people died.

While train movement was restricted in 2020 due to the pandemic-induced lockdown, the number of accidents resulting from driver’s carelessness and deaths from these accidents was less alarming in 2019, when train movements were normal. Fifty-one people died in 51 instances of accidents attributed to the “fault of driver” in 2019.

In 2018, there were 93 train accidents resulting from fault of driver and 105 people had lost their lives in the mishaps. Thirty-eight cases of train accidents owing to the fault of drivers were reported in 2017. Forty people were killed in these accidents.

Maximum number of lives lost due to “signalmen’s error”, during the five years (2017-21), too, was reported in 2021. Eighty-six people died in train accidents caused by signalmen’s error during the year. The corresponding figures were: 33 deaths took place due to signalmen’s error in 2020; 10 in 2019; 15 in 2018; and 27 deaths in 2017.

As if to make 2021 an especially bloody year in the history of railways, the number of deaths reported during the year from accidents resulting from “mechanical defects” was also found to be more than the corresponding figures of four previous years.

While 562 people died in accidents resulting from mechanical defects in 2021, number of people killed in similar accidents was 539 in 2020, 410 in 2019, 449 in 2018 and 496 in 2017.

When a train accident takes place due to poor design or track faults or bridge/tunnel collapse, it is categorised as an accident caused by “mechanical defect”.

While the total number of people killed in railway accidents during 2021 was 16,431, the number of railway accidents reported during the year was 17,993.

“Fall from trains” and “collision with people at track” led to majority of railway accidents (12,181). A total of 11,036 people died due to either fall from trains or collision of trains with people at tracks, accounting for 67.2 per cent of the deaths in railway accidents in 2021.