Goyal announces measures to ensure safe train operations

NEW DELHI: Faced with a string of derailments, railway minister Piyush Goyal has announced several measures to ensure safe train operations, including diversion of rails marked for construction of new lines to those stretches prone to accidents and where replacement was due.
He also directed officials to expedite procurement of new rails to complete laying of new tracks and eliminate all unmanned level crossings within a year.
However, there was no word on how the railways will manage the huge funds needed for maintenance of assets, track renewal, expansion of network and elimination of unmanned level crossings.
There were also no details shared on filling up vacancies in positions concerning passenger safety. As of January 1, 2017, there were vacancies of around 50,608 posts of trackmen which is adversely affecting track maintenance work.
An official said, “Construction of new lines is a capital expenditure and if rails are diverted from these projects which are funded by loan taken from LIC, then how will railways repay the loan.”
On an average, 4,000-5,000 km of tracks need to be renewed every year to keep the network in a healthy state. The cost of this alone would be around Rs 9,000 crore.
As of April 2017, 7,546 km of track was sanctioned for renewal but only 3,600 km was planned for renewal during 2017-18 and the rest was to be taken up in the next financial year.
As per norms, track renewal work has to be completed within 2-3 years, but railways often cites non-availability of fund, materials (short supply of rails from SAIL) and ‘traffic blocks’ for its failure to meet the target.
Railways has only 834 machines while the full mechanisation of track maintenance requires 2,805 machines. As per a master plan for complete mechanisation by 2024, the railways has planned to buy an additional 1,971 machines at a cost of Rs 18,760 crore.
On an average, the system requires Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore every year to replace old assets, an official said. However, only Rs 9,960 crore was allocated for track maintenance and renewal activities from Rashtriya Rail Suraksha Kosh.
As the state-run transporter is reeling under financial stress, its Depreciation Reserve Fund (DRF) and Development Fund (DR) are getting depleted which is the main worry as DRF is used to replace old asset (tracks, rolling stock or signalling systems).
Goyal directed eliminating all unmanned level crossings in a year’s time, bringing forward the earlier target to eliminate these in three years.
The task seems ambitious considering the railways’ financial health with removal of one level crossing costing around Rs 4.4 crore on average. As of April 2017, there are 27,054 level crossings of which 7,550 are unmanned. Around 4,943 of the 7,550 unmanned crossings are on the broad gauge.
The plan was to remove only unmanned crossings on broad gauge by 2020. As Goyal has revised the deadline, it means railways will have to remove 3,443 unmanned crossings, barring 1,500 which they have to eliminate in the current fiscal itself.