Reports on railway safety being ignored: Parl panel

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, June 3

While recommendations made by the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) should receive utmost importance from the Ministry of Railways, the reality is different.

A parliamentary committee report on railway safety tabled in March this year threw light on scant regard paid by the ministry to observations made by the CRS.

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There is a time frame for the CRS to submit report on accidents to the ministry (30 days for preliminary and 180 days for final report), but no time frame has been defined for the ministry to submit its action taken report on the findings of the CRS.

“At least 15 ATRs are still pending with the oldest accident pertaining to 2013-14, implying a delay of more than eight years. The committee is of the opinion that such delay in submission of ATRs makes the whole effort of investigating accidents futile,” the report stated. The probe of the yesterday’s Balasore tragedy has been entrusted to AM Chowdhary, CRS, South Eastern Railway (SER).

The parliamentary committee recommended fixing a time frame for submission of ATRs to avoid recurrence of train accidents and resultant loss to property and human lives.

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