Balasore train accident could have been averted if this would have done
Congress party claimed that the Coromandel train tragedy could have been avoided easily it the Sampark Kranti Express incident would have taken seriously.
Amid the ongoing discussion and questions being raised by the opposition parties regarding the tragic triple-train accident in Odisha’s Balasore district on Friday which claimed the lives of over 278 people and left over 1000 people injured and the probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a shocking and surprising fact has now come to the fore which revealed that the tragedy could have been averted if railway authorities did not ignore previous warnings by officials of the South Western Railway (SWR).
According to reports, a similar signal interlocking system error had occurred at the Hosadurga Road station in Birur-Chikjajur section of the Mysore division of SWR on February 8, 2023. The Karnataka Sampark Kranti Express was reportedly given a signal to proceed, but the point was wrongly set towards the down line, on which track a goods train was approaching. However, the alert train driver stopped the train before entering the wrong track and thus prevented a potential collision.
Soon, Principal Chief Operation Manager (PCOM) of South Western Railway (SWR) Hari Shankar Verma wrote a letter to the general manager of SWR emphasising the flaws in the system and the disregard for basic principles of interlocking and alerted that similar incidents and serious accidents may occur in the future if the signal maintenance system is not promptly monitored and corrected.
As the Balasore triple-train tragic took place three months after Verma’s letter and the preliminary probe of which revealed that the mishap took place due to changes in electronic interlocking system, the opposition parties have now started to corner the Railway Department and Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. They have sought the resignation of the Minister alleging that the department and the concerned officials did not take Verma’s letter seriously. They alleged that the Union Government did not learn lesson from the past.
Congress party claimed that the Coromandel train tragedy could have been avoided easily it the Sampark Kranti Express incident would have taken seriously.
Likewise, Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Saket Gokhale demanded to make SWR PCOM Hari Shankar Verma’s letter to the general manager of SWR public.
Similarly, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has questioned the Centre for allegedly ignoring the CAG-2022 audit report and for not spending funds allocated for the safety system ‘Kavach.’ Party national spokesperson Clyde Crasto and chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase raised various issues pertaining to these while reiterating the party’s stance seeking the resignation of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Crasto said that although an amount of Rs 468 crore was ostensibly allocated to the South Eastern Railway zone for fitting the anti-collision system ‘Kavach’, “not a single rupee was spent for this safety aspect in the past three years”.
Tapase added that a record number of railway derailments, accidents, collisions, damage to public property plus injuries and deaths have taken place in the last nine years of the BJP regime all over the country.
