Days after being rebuked by the Gujarat High Court for failing to eliminate lion deaths due to accidents at the Gir Forest Sanctuary, the Indian Railways and Gujarat Forest Department informed the court on Tuesday that they have developed a revised standard operating protocol (SOP), which restricts train speeds to less than 40 kilometers per hour (kmph) on the Pipavav-Surendranagar rail line during nighttime hours, to minimise collisions with lions in Amreli district.

Following a series of discussions, a joint meeting of forest and railway officials convened on April 3, prompted by the High Court’s attention to three lion deaths in January, two of which were attributed to train accidents.

Railways counsel advocate Ramnandan Singh provided an update to the bench comprising Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee, revealing the collaborative effort in crafting the revised SOP. Under this new protocol, locomotive speeds will be regulated to stay below 40 kmph from sunset to sunrise in areas identified as hotspots for lion movement.

The revised SOP will encompass approximately a 90-kilometer stretch of railway lines traversing Gir (east) wildlife division, Shetrunji wildlife division, and Amreli social forestry division in Amreli district. Notably, these measures will entail a reduction in train speeds on both the Pipavav-Surendranagar railway line of Pipavav Railway Corporation Limited (PRCL) and the Mahuva-Rajula line of Bhavnagar division of Western Railway, lowering them from the previous 90 kmph to less than 40 kmph.

The Pipavav-Surendranagar railway track, vital for the Pipavav port on the Rajula coast of Amreli, is heavily trafficked, mainly by goods trains. According to a forest officer, areas with frequent lion sightings have been identified as lion hotspots. To prevent collisions with lions, the Railways have agreed to limit train speeds to below 40 kilometers per hour (kmph) during the night in these hotspots. A caution order (CO) will be enforced in these areas year-round.

Due to the scattered distribution of these hotspots along the entire 90-kilometer stretch of railway line in Amreli, trains are unlikely to reach speeds of 100 kmph even in non-hotspot areas. The anticipated speed restriction is expected to reduce the risk of train-lion collisions by 60 to 70 percent, according to the officer.

Previously, the Railways would issue caution orders to limit train speeds to 45 kmph in specific stretches following requests from the forest department after lion movements were observed.

In the Gir (west) wildlife division in Junagadh and Gir Somnath districts, trains can only go at a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour on the Visavadar-Talala section, and no trains are allowed to operate at night.

Between July 2023 and January 2024, seven lions were hit and killed by trains on the Pipavav-Surendranagar section. This was a significant increase compared to the nine lion deaths on the railway tracks between April 2013 and March 2023.

The Chief Justice expressed frustration that the authorities needed court orders to deal with the problem. She questioned why they couldn’t take action on their own without court intervention. “You always need some interference from court, some sword hanging over your head and then you will work. We are not darogajis (guards), please don’t make us daroga for this. This is not done, not acceptable at all. It is the duty of the forest department to ensure that not a single animal is harmed by an outside element… Three accidents had occurred – two railway and one by car – only in the month of January and at that point of time, it did not occur to forest (department) that it should talk to Railways, they should sit together, they should find out solutions?,” she remarked.

The High Court came down heavily on forest and railway officials for not conducting inquiries into the accidents and taking corrective measures on their own. It has also demanded personal affidavits from the chief conservator of forest and the divisional railway manager and scheduled the next hearing for April 23.