New Delhi : Indian Railways has taken several steps to improve safety and working environment for its staff during the train operation, said Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw.
In a bid to provide safe and better conditions at the workplace, track maintainers, an important person in the railways to maintain rail tracks to ensure smooth trains operations who have to walk along the track for checking lines, have been provided with various safety gadgets to keep them safe when performing duty. The Retro reflective Safety Jackets (Luminous Vest), Safety Shoes, Clothing like Winter Jackets, Trousers, Gloves, Snow Boots, Caps, Rain Coat with Hood and Waterproof Trousers, Safety Helmet, Light Toolkit Bag, Gang Tools Rest Room, Gang Huts are the main gadgets.
“To avoid long walk or travel by the Track maintainers, normally the beat of Track maintainers’ gang is kept up to 8 km and headquarters of Track maintainers as well as their toolbox are located within gang beat,” the Minister said.
As several cases were noticed in the past about intimidation with Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTEs) during the ticket checking in the trains, for the safety of TTEs the cases of such incidents of intimidation of TTEs are registered by GRP and legal action will be taken against the offenders as per law, Vashnaw said in written reply to Lok Sabha.
As per Railways, several initiatives have been taken to address the issues of loco running crew to improve safety of train operations. Improvement has been done in locomotives for the comfort and for easing out duties of loco running staff. “Considering the tough duties of loco running staff, number of steps have been initiated and executed which are production of three phase locos, having ergonomic crew friendly design features like better seat and drivers desk for better comfort of loco and assistant loco pilot, has been increased in past 10 years,” Vaishnaw informed.
For the loco running staff, all new locos manufactured are provided with Air-Conditioned cabs. So far more than 7,000 locos have been provided with AC and new locos manufactured are provided with Vigilance Control Devices (VCD) as a technological aid to monitor and warn Loco Pilots in case of loss of alertness while driving. VCD has been provided in more than 12,000 (10,521 Electric and 1,873 Diesel) locos. A portable GPS based Fog safe Device (FSD) is being provided to Loco Pilots as a technical aid for displaying and announcing the name and distance of approaching signals and important landmarks, the Railway minister said.
Retro-reflective strips in sigma shape have been provided two masts prior to stop signals on all the Zonal Railways for easy identification of stop signals during foggy weather as an aid and for reducing stress on loco pilots, Vaishnaw said.
