Late on Friday evening the country was shaken by the news of the train tragedy at Balasore in Odisha that has till date claimed the lives of nearly 300 people. The dust has begun to settle at the site and the rescue operation has begun winding down and the restoration work to reactivate the track is now underway.
A preliminary report has suggested that a fault in the signalling system -- admittedly ageing and unserviced -- led to the Coromandel Express colliding with the goods train and later being struck by the Howrah Bengaluru Superfast Express that led to the massive pile up of train carriages and the loss of life, limb and dear ones.
The accident has thrown the spotlight on the safety systems of Indian Railways that the government claimed to have improved over the last few years. No doubt the country is seeing fewer rail accidents and major rail accidents have become less frequent, but much remains to be done with regard to the upkeep of the country’s vast and significant railway network.
It appears that the government had begun patting itself on the back a little too soon for the strides it has made in upgrading the Indian rail network. But scratch the surface and you will find that facilities for those who use the trains the most are sorely lacking especially for long distance trains.
While the government has focussed on vanity projects like the bullet train, the Vande Bharat Express -- trains that grab headlines and whose tickets are sold at a rate significantly higher than that of regular trains -- these new launches are primarily focussed on India’s middle class who are unlikely to be using railways either way. Instead, it is the poor, who have no option but to use trains and who more often than not travel unreserved have been hugely neglected simply because efforts towards bettering their travelling experience does not elicit the same kind of cheerleading on social and in mainstream media.
Even prior to the accident, certain social media observers began to highlight the pathetic situation that was emerging in Indian railways. Overcrowded trains were increasingly common. Several compartments including reserved compartments were occupied by unreserved travellers who had no option but to occupy whatever spaces they could find, because they simply had to reach their destination and no other means of travel was available.
However, there have been very few initiatives or projects launched for the people who use and need rail travel the most. No new trains were announced for the unreserved travellers, no improvement in the general safety set up of the railways and, as several reports have highlighted, around 1.4-lakh safety posts in the Railways are vacant and have not been filled.
The government has seemingly given safety a backseat while it has diverted resources away from crucial sector of the Indian Railways and prioritised fancy new projects that grab headlines but do little, if any good, for the average Indian railway commuter.
It is high time, those at the helm of government focus on real issues instead of only headline chasing that brings no real benefit.
