This year started on an inauspicious note with Amritsar-Sealdah, Akaltakth Express ramming into two trucks in UP’s Jaunpur district. Within a couple of days, on January 3, four wagons of a goods train derailed in the Dadri area of Ghaziabad district. While 2010 ended with 19 major train accidents involving human life, 2011 has logged 13 so far.

Dinesh Trivedi, as a freshly minted railway minister, promptly moved to set up a new railway accident committee, the fifth in as many decades.

The first four railway accident committees were all headed by eminent retired chief justices. The first appointed in 1962 was chaired by Justice Kunzru, the second in 1968 was headed by Justice Wanchoo, the third in 1978 was headed by Justice Sikri an the last one in 1998 was headed by Justice Khanna.

Reportedly action has been taken more or less on almost all the recommendations of these voluminous reports, and the number of accidents have registered a sharp decline, from a level of 1,066 in 1965-66 to 234 in 2005-06. However the safety record of this 1.4-million-strong behemoth is still far from satisfactory.

Railways is no rocket science and solutions are needed which are pragmatic and simple to implement. Collisions may cause loss of human life and are highly visible in the electronic media, but they form less than 5% of the incidents, the much larger chunk of 70% of accidents, which are derailments, seldom get covered in the media, but are equally an important indicator of the health of rail system.

Over the years quite a few fundamental problems that plague the Railways have emerged and these need to be addressed. The vital role played by the two key players viz. the divisional railway managers and the general managers has been severely downgraded, with posts lying vacant for months on end or being filled in with officers lacking in field experience.

As of today, no less than 10 posts of GMs have been lying vacant for more than six months. DMs, who are the field commanders in the line of fire to ensure that the systems work and implement major changes, get posted for just a two-year tenure as a routine, giving them not much of an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to improving the system.

Successive rail ministers over the last decade have committed valuable financial resources for hundreds of unviable projects, starving the Railways of funds for replacing over-aged assets while introducing hundreds of new trains, crowding out the bread-and-butter freight business.

The Railways has still to get over the severe disruption to its command and control system caused by creation of seven new zones, taking the total from a compact and manageable 9 to 16.

The new committee, undoubtedly comprising some of the best brains in India, like Anil Kakodkar, ex-chairman AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), GP Srivastava of BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre), N.Vedachalam of VSSC (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre), Prof Sanjay Dhanda of IIT, Kanpur, and the Metro Man E Shreedharan, who himself has an outstanding record of working in the Railways before bowing out as Member Engineering, Railway Board, more than a decade back, has been given three months to submit their report.

However time is now ripe to take stock and get the system back on its feet, with some intensive monitoring at all levels to ensure that safety systems are in place and are being followed in letter and in spirit. Prioritising the hundreds of projects in the pipeline so that railways are able to get the biggest bang for their bucks is imperative.

It may be too much to ask, but given his reputation for being highly pragmatic, perhaps Dinesh Trivedi may surprise everyone by placing an embargo on new projects as well as defer introduction of any new passenger trains for at least a couple of years, giving the freight business a chance to catch up with the burgeoning demands placed on it by a developing economy, and end up improving the Railways bottom line.

The writer is former member (mechanical), Railway Board.

email: acharya@bol.net.in