69% drop in accidents with no deaths or injuries; Railways set new record on safety

The Indian Railways for the first time is set to move towards zero fatalities and injuries due to train accidents. During the current financial year, the number of accidents came down by 69 per cent. This is compared to 5 deaths and 81 injuries due to consequential train accidents during the financial year 2019-20.

Consequential train accidents include collision, derailment, fire, level crossing accidents and other miscellaneous accidents. However, run-over deaths are not considered as part of railway accidents.

Addressing the performance review of zonal railways in January, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal had asked the zones to work towards achieving the goal of zero accidents through proper maintenance of assets.

In 2017-18, the government had introduced Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) for the replacement, renewal and up-gradation of critical safety assets with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore for five years.

The Indian Railways is in the process of implementing the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System to prevent Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD) and has already provided the system in 595 route km. To improve safety, the railways is also in the process of replacing conventional Integral Coach Factory-design coaches with Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches. The national transporter has set a target of doing away with 16,238 conventional coaches by 2025 and another 23,090 coaches by 2030.

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