Safety is the first priority of Indian Railways -Ashwani Lohani, CRB

Chairman, Railway Board Ashwani Lohani review the safety of all Zonal Railways

New Delhi: On Saturday, 19th May 2018; a comprehensive review of the position of safety in train operations on Indian Railways was done by Chairman, Railway Board (CRB), Ashwani Lohani via video-conference. General Managers of the all the Zones of Indian Railways were present in the video-conference. In the video-conference, CRB discussed the safety performance on different Zones.

CRB Ashwani Lohani held a Safety Review Meeting with the General Managers of Indian Railways from Railway Board, New Delhi on 19th May 2018. Principal Heads of Departments participated in the meeting through video conference with GMs at their Zonal HQs.

Addressing the meeting, Ashwani Lohani advised the General Managers to focus on improvement of Safety standards mostly at Level Crossing gates so as to avoid any untoward incidents. He has reviewed Safety aspects of each Zone on Indian Railways and instructed to take necessary steps on a war footing to eliminate unmanned level crossing. Chairman, Railway Board advised all the General Managers to hold Safety seminars at regular intervals. He also suggested to educate and sensitize the staff, especially Safety category staff like Assistant Station Masters, Loco Pilots, Gatemen, Pointsmen and Guards about the importance of Safety.

Speaking in the Video-conference, CRB said that in the year 2016-17, the number of consequential accidents over Indian Railways was 104, which came down to 73 in 2017-18 due to sustained efforts of the zonal railways. “In the current Financial Year, our target is to bring this figure below 50” he added.

It was decided in the video-conference that there should not be more than 3 to 4 non-interlocked Level Crossing gates in any single block section. In case there was more than this number of LC gates in a block section, the rest would be made interlocked even if they have TVU less than the present norms.

Vinod Kumar Yadav, GM/SCR appraised Safety aspects prevailing on South Central Railway. He has briefed about various steps being taken on Zone to strengthen Safety. He assured to Railway Board that by September 2018, all the existing unmanned level crossings on the Zone will be eliminated. To strengthen Safety at manned level crossing gates, CCTV cameras were installed at 11 places.

In the conference, GM/NCR M. C. Chauhan said that ‘Mission Zero SPAD’ launched in NCR in February 2017, has been a success with zero SPAD by LPs/ALPs of NCR on NCR-system in the last Financial Year. He also informed that innovations to prevent SPAD done by NCR are continuing which include counseling LPs/ALPs and their families by officers and improvement of running rooms under the ‘Gross Happiness Index’(GHI) project.

He said that the condition of running rooms over NCR has improved substantially as a result of actions taken on the feedback received from LPs/ALPs under the GHI project, which, in turn, has led to improvement in the satisfaction levels of LPs/ALPs. He further said that due to effective grievance redressal, NCR had become number two in Indian Railways in redressal of complaints received on the CPGRAMs portal-up several notches from its former position in this area.

He said that in order to ensure alertness of staff, regular checks on level crossing gates, ambush checks and surprise inspections at night are being done at the level of officers and supervisors.

GM/NCR requested the Railway Board to provide high output Ballast Cleaning Machines (BCM) & high output tampers along with one Track Relaying Train (TRT) machine, so as to extract maximum productivity from the block time that was being provided to track machines in the supersaturated Ghaziabad-Mughalsarai section which has a line capacity utilization of 151 to 167% along its entire length.

He also requested the Railway Board to expedite the permission for non-interlocking of Panki Yard for its remodeling. Speaking on the subject of the closure of Level Crossings GM/NCR said that NCR had performed better than the target by closing 75 UMLCs in the last Financial Year against a target of 73.

He further informed that all the remaining 79 UMLCs would be closed down by NCR by September this year. Speaking on Manned Level Crossings he said that in the current financial year there was a target of elimination of 54 MLCs.

The discussion was focussed on the following subjects:

1. Safety at worksites.

2. Provision of Thick Web Switches.

3. Status of Doubling, New line works.

4. Implementation of Transformation Initiatives.

5. Division wise Safety Action Plans and their monitoring.

6. The number of yards with Mechanical interlocking and action plan for replacement of the same.

7. Analysis of consequential and other accidents by Zonal Railway & actions to be taken (up to 15.5.2018)

8. Status of Important Projects on the Zonal Railways like USBRL, DFCCIL, High Speed, Bio-Toilets, Station Development, Electrification etc.

9. Elimination of Unmanned Level Crossings (UMLCs) and Manned Level Crossings (MLCs) along with strategies to handle block sections with a high number of MLCs.