Title - ECoR blames State Govt for elephant tragedy

The East Coast Railway (ECoR) authorities on Wednesday questioned the allegations of the State Government about the Railways’ culpability in the matter of elephants’ death and squarely blamed the State’s Forest Department for it.

The ECoR management held a Press conference here obviously to counter the “misinformation” being spread in the media about the recent tragic train accident that claimed the life of six pachyderms at Rambha in Ganjam.

Divisional Railway Manager of Khurdha Division of ECoR SK Mohanty distributed a copy of the general advisory issued jointly by the Ministry of Railways and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to mediapersons which was based on the deliberations at the same meeting on September 4, 2009 to which Odisha’s Forest Minster Bijayshree Routray had referred to in his Press briefings on December 31.

Mohanty said four of the six points of the advisory have been carried out by erecting signage boards having a sensitisation programme for railway personnel, clearing vegetation on both sides of the track and keeping railway tracks free of food items. Thus, the four points of the advisory have been met. Another advisory regarding creation of underpasses has not been met. He pointed out that lapses in the only remaining points in the advisory calls, which is entirely in the realm of responsibility of the Forest Department of the State is the source of the tragic incident. That point mandates the MoEF to engage trackers who would inform the railway control point about elephant herds. The alert should be for two hours and should relate to a section of two km only.

Giving a chronological description of the sequence of the events on that fateful night, he said that as per the data received from the mobile phone service provider company, the only call that came to the dedicated number that day was at 12 43 am and lasted for four minutes. The train had crossed Rambha station at 12 40 am as per the logbook and that implies that it had already reached the point of the incident when the call came. The conclusion is that the call came after or just at the time of accident which trashes the claim of the State Government about its timely alert to the Railways.

Another interesting piece of information released by Mohanty was that the phone call had come from a number belonging to the Ranger of the Chilka Wildlife Division while the accident happened in the area of the Forest Department and not the Chilka Wildlife Division’s jurisdiction.

Mohanty said the letter dated December 18 from the Forest Range Officer of Khalikote, which was informed to the media by the State Government, has never reached any office in his jurisdiction or ECoR head office. Nor has a copy been furnished to him even after the Minister demanded it at the meeting on December 31.

In answer to a question, he said he could not remember if the Forest Department has ever informed the railway authorities over telephone about elephants’ movements near the railway tracks. That puts a question mark on the claim of the Forest Department about the letter under question because if there actually were a lot of track crossings then there should have been many telephonic alerts like the one that happened in Ganjam district.

Adding another puzzling dimension to the entire issue, Mohanty quoted the attendant of the level crossing near which the accident took place to highlight that just before the accident he saw a group of persons following the herd with torch lights and bell hailers who ran away after the accident but came back soon to remove the tusks of the dead jumbos. 

Mohanty categorically ruled out the possibility of trains being always permanently run at slower speed on the designated stretches of tracks. He also said he is not aware of any case being filed against any staff including the driver of the train. Regarding the death of an auxiliary staff in the accident, he said the GRP is investigating it.

Indicating the high level of acrimony that the issue has generated between the two sides, Mohanty even blamed the withdrawal of two Kumkis from that area, as reported in the media earlier, being responsible for the tragedy.