Issue of Railway Safety in India

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in News?
• Issue of Railway Safety in India
• Highlights of the Union Budget 2024-25
• Highlights of the Economic Survey 2023-24

Why in News?

• According to Union Budget 2024-25, the Ministry of Railways has received a record allocation of over ₹2.55 lakh crore in financial year 2024-25, which is a jump of 5.85% from the previous year’s ₹2.41 lakh crore.
• However, the Economic Survey 2023-24 indicates limited progress on safety-related works such as deployment of automatic train protection system Kavach and overhaul of signalling systems at all stations.

Issue of Railway Safety in India:

• Total number of train accidents in India: The six-year period between 2015-16 to 2021-22 saw 449 train accidents (excluding train accidents from Konkan Railways).
• Most prominent categories of train accidents in India:
  • Incidents of derailments have been the most common cause of train accidents in India.
  • According to the CAG’s Performance Audit of Indian Railways, nearly three fourth of 217 train accidents across the country between 2017-18 and 2020-21 were caused by derailments.
  • The 2nd most common cause of train accidents is level crossing accidents, followed by fire and collisions.
• Major factors responsible for derailments: Maintenance of tracks, deviation of track parameters beyond permissible limits, and bad driving/over speeding.
• Recommendations of the CAG:
  • Development of a strong monitoring mechanism: To ensure timely implementation of maintenance activities by adopting fully mechanised methods of track maintenance and improved technologies.
  • Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK): Railway administration must follow the guiding principles for deployment of RRSK funds.
  • Detailed Outcome Framework: Indian Railway may prepare the framework for each item of safety work.
  • Conducting and finalising accident inquiries: Ensuring strict adherence to the scheduled timelines for conducting and finalising accident inquiries.

Highlights of the Union Budget 2024-25:

• The total outlay provided for capital expenditure:
  • It comes to ₹2.65 lakh crore after accounting for ₹2.52 lakh crore from general revenue, ₹200 crore from the Nirbhaya Fund, ₹3,000 crore from internal resources, and ₹10,000 crore from extra budgetary resources.
  • The majority of this fund will be spent on ensuring safety works, along with the creation of assets, acquisitions, construction and replacement.
  • In 2014, only ₹35,000 crore was spent towards capital expenditure on railways.
• The actual operating ratio of the railways:
  • Operating ratio is the number of rupees spent to earn every hundred rupees.
  • In Budget Estimates of FY 2024-25, this has gone up a bit to 98.22% (from 98.10% for FY 2022-23). This means for every 100 rupees spent, railways earn 98.22 rupees.
  • The operating ratio shows how efficient the management is at keeping costs low while generating revenue.
• Kavach installation:
  • Kavach (Automatic Train Protection System) consists of multiple components like hardware, software, optical fibre.
  • As India has a diverse network of railway systems, the challenge is to combine all networks for deployment of Kavach.
  • However, as approvals on Kavach 4.0 have been received, the pace of installation of the system will be rapid.

Highlights of the Economic Survey 2023-24:

• Slow pace of Kavach installation: Kavach has been deployed on 1,465 route km in the South-Central Railway. This is just 2.14% of the total railway network of 68,426 route km and 7,349 railway stations.
• Switch from mechanical signalling:
  • Out of 17 operational railway zones in India, eight zones have become free from mechanical signalling. 
  • However, only 46% of India’s 7,325 railway stations had made the switch from mechanical signalling to electronic interlocking system (introduced in India 12 years ago) till FY24.
• Capex deployment: The capex deployment in railways has increased by 77% over the past five years, ranging to ₹2.62 lakh crore in FY24 with significant investments in construction of new lines, gauge conversion and doubling.
• Installation of signalling intervention - Automatic Block Signalling (ABS):
  • This system uses automatic signals to regulate train passage between blocks, preventing rear-end collisions and assisting trains travelling in the same direction.
  • While the ABS is a proven low-cost signalling solution, it has been commissioned on only 6.47% of total length of Indian Railways.

Q.1. What is the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK)?

The RRSK was a safety fund created in 2017-18 with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore for track improvement, bridge rehabilitation, rolling stock replacement, human resource development, improved inspection system and safety work at level crossing, etc.

Q.2. What is Kavach of Indian railways?

Kavach is an automatic train protection (ATP) system indigenously developed by the Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO) of Indian Railways in 2012 under the name Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS).

Source: Budget 2024: With ₹2.65 lakh crore outlay, Railways to prioritise safety | TH