Odisha train accident: Railways has said that the time for response at such a high speed was very short.

Odisha accident: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw today said the "root cause" of the horrific triple train collision in Odisha's Balasore, which claimed 288 lives and injured over 1,000, has been identified and will be revealed in a report soon. Critics say that a railway audit report was presented in Parliament in September last year, which revealed several serious flaws in rail safety. Vaishnaw has said that the accident occurred due to a change in "electronic interlocking". The Railway Board has also detailed the sequence of events that led to the accident.

India's top auditing body, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, had raised concerns over train derailments in 2022. It had asked in the report to find out whether the Railway Ministry has formulated or implemented clear measures to prevent derailments and collisions of trains.
It had raised serious concerns over the drastic reduction in inspections, failure to submit or accept inquiry reports after accidents, non-utilisation of railway funds earmarked for priority works, lack of funding for track renewal and inadequate staff for safety.

"Inspections were reduced by 30-100 per cent through track recording cars required to assess the geometrical and structural condition of railway tracks," the report said.

The report also pointed to failures in the track management system, which is being widely discussed after the Odisha train accident.

"Track Management System (TMS) is a web-based application for online monitoring of track maintenance activities. However, the in-built monitoring mechanism of the TMS portal was not found to be operational."

The report said that from April 2017 to March 2021, 422 cases of derailment due to the 'engineering department' were reported. Among the major reasons responsible for the derailment of the coaches was related to 'maintenance of track' (171 cases). Apart from this, 'more deviation of track parameters' (156 cases) was also a reason. The report said that 'poor driving/overspeeding' is also responsible for the incidents of derailment.

The CAG found that the number of accidents caused by the 'operating department' was 275. Further, "incorrect setting of points and other mistakes in shunting operations" accounted for 84 per cent of the incidents.

"Most of the derailment incidents were caused by any of five constraints, namely, (i) rules and joint procedure orders (JPOs), (ii) training/counselling of staff, (iii) supervision of operations, (iv) coordination and communication among employees of various departments (v) scheduled inspections," the report said.

No adherence to time limit in submission of inquiry report

In 63 per cent of the cases, the 'inquiry report' was not submitted to the accepting officer within the stipulated time frame and in 49 per cent of the cases, there was a delay in the acceptance of the report by the accepting officer.

The report said that a fund of Rs 2017 lakh crore was received from the National Rail Safety Fund in the five years starting 18-<> under a reserve fund for total expenditure on priority works. There was a declining trend in it. The CAG report said that the allocation of funds for track renewal works has come down and the amount already allocated has also not been fully utilised.

Expenditure on non-priority works instead of railway safety

"There was a growing trend of IR (Indian Railways) towards expenditure on non-priority works against the guiding principles of the National Rail Safety Fund (RRSK) Deployment Framework. The purpose of creating a separate dedicated fund for the sole purpose of funding security-related works had failed. Security related works were stalled due to lack of funds."

"Out of 2017,21 incidents of derailment during 1-127, 289 (26 per cent) were related to track renewal," the CAG report said.

The CAG concluded that "necessary steps have not been taken for adequate staff in the safety category, which may have an impact on the quality of maintenance".

The CAG has recommended that the railways ensure strict adherence to the prescribed timelines for completion and finalisation of accident-related enquiries and adopt fully mechanised methods with better technology for track maintenance. Develop a robust monitoring mechanism to ensure timely implementation of maintenance activities.

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