In a country whose major industries and political fortunes alike are often tied to a sprawling and interwoven rail system, India is lavishing public funds on new trains, but they are already running. Purse strings are getting tighter when it comes to securing trains. its footprints.
Those decisions loomed large on Sunday in the aftermath of a devastating train accident that killed at least 275 people in eastern India. Investigators said they were focusing on the possibility that a signal failure caused the three trains to collide on Friday. The accident was the country’s worst rail accident in years.
Authorities said more than 1,100 people were injured in the accident, which occurred when a passenger train heading south towards Chennai city at about 130 mph veered off the tracks and hit a stopped freight train. The cars of the derailed first train rammed a second passenger train heading towards it, leaving a massacre scene.
In recent years, India has been polishing its long-dilapidated infrastructure like never before, with railroads, the heart of the world’s fifth-largest economy, being the biggest beneficiary. The government spent about $30 billion on the rail system last fiscal year, a 15% increase over the previous year.
But less money is being spent on basic track maintenance and other safety measures.a report India’s independent body, the Board of Audit, said last year that funds allocated for track upgrades had dwindled and authorities had not spent the full amount they had secured.
With more than 20 million passengers on Indian railways every day, many of them migrant workers, politicians could not make a mistake by pouring money into the system, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi. did just that, with more than a little fanfare. The budget for one of the world’s largest rail systems this year is five times what it was when he took office.
But most of Modi’s efforts are aimed at improving speed and comfort, not the basic steps needed to get a train from point A to point B without an accident. He praised the new Vande Bharat electric train linking various cities and the Japanese bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, which did nothing to improve the daily life of ordinary commuters. Most likely not.
The government said the investment is part of an effort to bring India’s rail travel experience to world-class standards and attract foreign investment.
However, spending on a program dedicated to improving the safety of India’s more than 13,000 old trains has shrunk, both in aggregate and in absolute terms, according to a recently announced budget.
Partha Mukhopadhyay, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Studies, a New Delhi organization, cited one particular need. “We might be able to pay more attention to signaling functions,” he says. “Strategically, signals are a soft capacity addition and will become even more important as we move to higher speed trains.”
Although Friday’s accident was devastating, rail travel in India is now much safer than ever.
Derailments used to be a frequent occurrence, averaging 475 per year from 1980 until the turn of the century. In the decade to 2021, that number has dropped to just over 50. According to one paper Railway officials spoke at the World Disaster Management Conference.
More generally, the safety of Indian railways is also improving, with the number of serious train accidents steadily declining, from more than 300 per year two decades ago to 22 cases. By 2020, India had not recorded a single passenger fatality from a rail accident for the second year in a row, which was hailed as a milestone by the Modi government. Until 2017, more than 100 passengers died each year.
India is spending more under Modi, and the Treasury Department and World Bank expect private companies to follow the government’s lead and pour more money into the economy. The World Bank said in an April report that the share of government spending towards India’s long-term goals “has increased compared to pre-pandemic levels.” Transportation, including rail, is playing a big role in the surge in spending.
“In the 21st century, railway growth and reform are essential for the rapid development of the country.” Mr Modi said: At the inauguration of the railroad line last year. “A nationwide campaign to transform railroads is underway.”
Auguste Tano Kuame, director of India at the World Bank, said the high share of public spending on electricity distribution, new highways and railways would “concentrate” spending by companies seeking long-term profits. .
Three months ago, Indian Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnau said in an effort to promote homegrown safety technology: made a show He was charged with putting himself and the Chairman of the Railway Board on two trains on a collision course. The idea was to demonstrate a new system called Kavach (armor).
The two trains sped towards each other on a single track. At a distance of 400 meters (about 440 yards), the new system automatically applied the brakes.
However, the Kavach system has only been installed on a small fraction of Indian railways, covering about 900 miles (more than 40,000 miles) of the total line. The rail line was not used for the trains that collided on Friday, but opposition politician Mamata Banerjee, former Minister of Railways, took advantage of it.
“If this device had been on the train, none of this would have happened,” she told reporters.
Researcher Dr Mukhopadhyay said “something like Kavac could have come in handy” if the accident turned out to be due to a signal error.
The railway minister, Weischnau, has already been called upon by some to resign, but has rejected the offer.
“This accident is not a collision avoidance system problem,” he said.
Samir Yasir Contributed to a report from Balasore, India. Mujib Mashal and Suhasini Raj Originally from New Delhi.
