South Central Railway General Manager P.K. Srivastava on Friday constituted a 3-member joint committee of senior divisional officers handling safety, mechanical and line functions, to inquire into Thursday’s mishap and submit a report after probing all aspects of the accident that took the lives of 14 children.
Works including fixing of gate barriers and other infrastructure started at the unmanned level crossing (UMLC) no. 233 near Masaipet in Medak district. Instructions were issued for completing the works within a week, a press release said.
Mr. Srivastava held a meeting with the principal heads of departments in the zone, reviewing the progress of works on eliminating the remaining 640 UMLCs and critically examined the action plan to do away with each one of them by 2016-17. In the past four years, he was told, 514 UMLCs were removed.
Mr. Srivastava wanted that no stone be left unturned in the endeavour to reduce risks associated with the remaining UMLCs.
Steps being taken include manning the same with a gate barrier, construction of limited height subways, diversion to the adjacent gate or even closing them down where traffic density is less. The field position of the related works he said, was being closely monitored.
Meanwhile, divisional secretary of the SCR Mazdoor Union, K. Sivakumar, recalled that while saying it would take Rs.40,000 crore to have the required safety measures in place, only a meagre Rs.1,700 crore had been allocated for the purpose. In the past decade, only 380 road over/underbridges were constructed he said, and pointed out that about 40 per cent of accidents happened at level crossings with fatalities put at 60 per cent. Mr. Sivakumar referred to the High-level Safety Review Committee set up with Anil Kakodkar as chairman that had estimated the cost of elimination of all level crossings at Rs.50,000 crore. The amount could be recovered in seven years, he explained.
