North Chennai Member of Parliament Dr. Kalanithi Veerasamy has written to the Union Railway Minister to strengthen three factors to prevent train accidents.
North Chennai Member of Parliament Dr. Kalanithi Veerasamy has written to the Union Railway Minister Mr. Ashwini Vaishnav that immediate action should be taken to prevent further accidents like the Kanchan Janga train accident in West Bengal.
In the letter he further said that I am bringing to your attention the letters already written to them dated 5.06.2023 and 13.06.2023. In those letters, I mentioned that train accidents often occur due to three reasons: lack of maintenance of railway constructions, lack of funds, and inadequate staffing.
But it is very sad that the shortcomings I mentioned above still persist. Also, I have come to know that there is a huge financial crisis in the railway sector. It is also said that the entire fund earmarked for maintenance in railway zone areas from April 2024 to June 2024 has been fully spent in April itself. As a result, insufficient maintenance work has been done in railway logistics. Also the Railway Zones are said to follow the practice of showing revenue expenditure as capital expenditure. This is a very wrong practice and the privacy department should investigate it.
Also I have mentioned in my previous letters that due to shortage of manpower in railway departments, there are not enough personnel even to operate the safety equipments of the railway tracks and therefore technical personnel should be appointed immediately for safety work.
Now the Railway Department has issued a notification for the recruitment of only 9000 posts including 5700 technical posts. It is said that 70 percent of the posts of loco pilot posts have been reduced by the direct order of the Railway Minister and the notification has been issued.
In the last August 2023, you had informed in Parliament that 2.5 lakh posts, including 1.8 lakh technical posts, were vacant in the railway sector. That being the case, what is the reason for announcing only 9000 posts and filling them up?
Inadequate number of safety personnel from railway technical department is the reason for frequent accidents. Among these, many railway workers have died. Civilians have also died. I request that the railway department should focus on safety and development and appoint adequate staff.
In my earlier letters I have mentioned that the lack of emergency response personnel of the Railway Department causes delays in reaching the accident site when accidents occur. We know that even in the recent Kanjan Janga Express train accident, the Muslim brothers, who were involved in the Bakrit festival events at the accident site, immediately involved themselves in the rescue work.
It is said that it took two hours for the railway rescue team to reach the spot. The accident site and Jalpaikuri railway station are about 10 km away. Why is it taking so long to get there? Would this delay not have occurred if sufficient technical personnel were available?
I consider it a great shame that we do not ensure the lives and property of railway passengers in our country, as we boast that our country has sent a probe to explore the South Pole on the moon.
In Japan, trains travel at speeds of 300 to 350 kilometers per hour, where even a single fatality has not been recorded for Dasaap sites, so we must ensure that our train passengers are adequately protected.
