Title - House panel raps Rly over safety measures

Taking a grim view of railway’s safety, a Parliamentary panel has flayed the Railway Ministry for not adopting advance safety measures like Anti-Collision Device, Complete Track Circuiting in station yard, Auxiliary Warning System and audio-visual devices in locomotive that have been recommended by the Commission for Railway Safety (CRS).

“The Committee fails to understand why none of these modern safety devices could be adopted in Indian Railways wholly or partially,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture said in its report on functioning of CRS submitted to Rajya Sabha Chairman on Wednesday.

Pointing out that railways are avoiding them on one pretext or other, Panel Chairman Sitaram Yechury said unless these safety equipments are installed the spate of accidents cannot be stopped. Despite introducing Anti-Collision Device in select routes on trial bases, railways has not expanded them to other routes on the ground that further trial are needed conditions, he said.

The report has criticized the railway ministry for not following safety standards and instructions of CRS and curtailing the power of CRS through an executive order thereby restricting its power of investigating accidents. The panel has reiterated the need for a separate legislation for clearly defining the role, power and jurisdiction of CRS to ensure its autonomy and effective functioning. Similar recommendation made in the past by the panel was rejected by the Railway Ministry.

Noting that Commissioners are working without technical support and CRS faces staff crunch, the committee has recommended that man power be increased and vacancies filled on priority.

The panel in another report flayed the government and Planning Commission for not operationalising waterways due to inadequate fund allocations which has left many projects on paper. Out of 14500 Km navigable waterways only 5700 KM is can be used but in practice only fraction of it is actually used. Against the projected requirement of Rs 10,500 crore for developing Inland Waterways only Rs 1500 has been allocated by the Planning Commission while in 11th plan only Rs 1168 crore was incurred.

The Committee has also recommended Darjeeling Hills falling in West Bengal be included as part of North East so that the backward region could benefit from the ten percent of total budgetary allocation meant for DONER 

 

Centre, Delhi in blame game on transport

The Centre and the Delhi Government blamed each other before a Parliamentary panel for failure to provide safe transport system in Delhi which was evident from the recent gang-rape in a bus. The Delhi government said that though it made the laws concerning transport, implementation is in the hands of the centre through Delhi Traffic police which creates confusion. Police latter flayed the transport department for not impounding vehicles violating rules. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture also heard the views of the National Information Centre which collects data on transport, NCR Planning board and representatives of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan Government to finalise its report on providing safe transport system so that citizens do not suffer.