Indian Railways putting safety on peril with inadequate allocation of funds for safe running of trains

Chennai:

The safety of Indian Railways is allegedly put on peril with inadequate allocation of funds for safe running of train services and using coaches that have run out of their shelf life, according to Southern Railway Mazdoor Union general secretary N Kanniah.

Addressing a press conference, N Kanniah, general secretary of Southern Railway Mazdoor Union alleged there is lack of funds in building new coaches for trains and the Madras-Coimbatore Duranto Express in Southern Railways is being run with coaches which are old and allegedly ran out of shelf life or nearing the completion of shelf life.

“They just painted the old coaches and put them to use in the southern sector,” said Kanniah.

He also said there is inadequate allocation for safe running of train services. “A sum of Rs 408 crore alone is allocated for track maintenance and utilizing the same only 20 per cent of track can be maintained,” he alleged.

However, railway officials denied the allegations said there is no compromise on safety. “The coaches are scrutinized before putting into service,” railway officials said.

Kanniah also alleged that the coaches are rarely fumigated as these jobs are outsourced and the workers doing these jobs are paid lowly resulting in a shoddy work due to lack of interest.

He also alleged that the railways lacks adequate manpower and more than 2.40 lakh vacancies have yet to be filled. “Now with another 150 trains being operated railways requires to fill another three lakh vacancies,” he added.

He also alleged there is inadequate funding for the Karur-Namkkal-Salem new railway track project which was initiated 10 years ago for which only Rs 40 crore was allocated. Similarly, against the requirement of Rs 1,000 crore for various projects such as gauge conversion of Quilon-Virudhnagar, Dindigul-Coimbatore, myladithurai-Pattukotai projects only Rs 70 crore is being allocated.

Kanniah also said that they are not against rollback of fares but the social cost of Indian railways has to be born by the government.