SAFETY FIRST

As the country's economic backbone, the Indian Railways needs to implement not only 'Make in India' but also 'Maintain in India' to enhance safety

- MANISH PANT

A REPORT BY the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) for the South Eastern Circle of the Indian Railways blames technical lapses in signalling for the triple train accident on June 2. But experts say that the report fails to clearly identify the underlying causes to prevent a recurrence. The accident in Odisha's Balasore district left 295 dead and over 1,200 injured. Incidentally, it bears an eerie similarity to the 1999 Gaisal train accident in West Bengal, where two passenger trains collided, killing around 300 passengers, again due to a signalling error. "There are specific issues that successive railway inquiries have failed to capture," warns safety expert Lalit Chandra Trivedi, who retired as General Manager of East Central Railway.