Rail Budget: A huge emphasis on safety

The Ministry of Railways proposes to set up an independent Railway Safety Authority as a statutory regulatory body as recommended by Kakodkar Committee.

This was announced by the Minister of Railways Dinesh Trivedi.

Introducing the Railway Budget for 2012-13 in Parliament on Wednesday, he said, the function of the authority would be worked out in greater details in line with international practices in the best interest of passenger safety.

The minister said since research and development activities are central to any tangible results in the area of safety enhancement, he also proposed to set up a Railway Research and Development Council at the apex level to spearhead such efforts.

Trivedi said his entire emphasis is going to be on safety.

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Source: PIB

Admitting that he is not at all satisfied with the safety standard at the present moment, the minister said the commitment made in 2001 to reduce accidents per million train km from 0.55 to 0.17 has been achieved.

He said, however the target should be zero death. The Minister said that more than 40 per cent of the consequential train accidents, involving 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the total casualties occur at unmanned railway crossings.

To fast track elimination of level crossings in the next five years, the railways have decided to set up a Special Purpose Vehicle named Rail-Road Grade Separation Corporation of India.

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To achieve even higher safety standards, he has decided to set up a committee to examine the current standards of safety on Indian Railways and to suggest suitable benchmarks and safety protocols, Trivedi said.

Considering the zero tolerance approach in the areas of nuclear science and aerospace, he said the best people to guide railways in determining appropriate safety protocols should be from these two fields.

The minister also announced that a New Board Member (Safety/Research) to be inducted in the Railway Board.

He said, three 'Safety Villages' to be set up at Bengaluru, Kharagpur and Lucknow for skill development for disaster management.