Indian Railways says "no casualties due to train accidents"

Soon after reports going around over the deaths of more than 8,700 people on the railway tracks in the year 2020, Indian Railways has issued a clarification suggesting that this is not an issue of 'rail accidents' and consequential casualties as there has been "no passenger deaths" in the last 2 years due to any railway accident.

New Delhi: Soon after reports going around over the deaths of more than 8,700 people on the railway tracks in the year 2020, Indian Railways has issued a clarification suggesting that this is not an issue of 'rail accidents' and consequential casualties as there has been "no passenger deaths" in the last 2 years due to any railway accident.

Replying to an RTI query, the Railway Board informed that 805 people have suffered injuries and 8,733 people died on the railway tracks between January 2020 and December 2020.

The reports also suggested that many of those people who died on the railway tracks were migrant workers as during the Covid induced lockdown, they chose to walk along the tracks to reach home.

Ministry of Railways Spokesperson, DJ Narain reacted over the matter, saying, "Story leads many to form an uninformed opinion about unfortunate deaths on tracks. The story is based on an RTI response, which generally, give limited - to the point information, as guided by the RTI Query."

Ministry of Railways also released a statement over this matter, claiming that it is not an issue of rail accidents and consequential casualties.

"The figures mentioned in the story are not of any casualties due to any train accident. There have been no passenger deaths in 2 years due to any railway accident. Our concern on the safety of passenger and citizens is second to none," the statement said.

It further added, "such unfortunate incidents happen on railway tracks but not due to any railway accident but because of trespassing.

Calling it a "civic issue of concern", the statement asserted that Indian Railways has been putting huge efforts in sensitizing the trespassers to avoid walking on tracks.

"Around 70,000 km of rail tracks are spread across the country and has 17,000 plus trains of all kinds running daily. Deaths on tracks by trespassers make the railways sad. People must understand that shortcuts can be dangerous and trespassing must be avoided. There is perhaps more number of such unfortunate accidents which happen on roads due to careless road crossings. All these things are so avoidable and so unfortunate," Railways said.

The Ministry of Railways also claimed that as the report is "not factual", it may "mislead" many to interpret such incidents.

Some of the measures that have been taken by Indian Railways to eliminate trespassing includes the elimination of unmanned level crossings over the broad gauge network, signal modernisation, the use of modern machines in maintenance, and many others.